Tears of the World
by Dreylen
Summary: The second book in the True Gaia series. After getting surprised in Burmecia, Drake and co. must race not only against the enemy and time, but against their own thoughts.
1. Memories and Discoveries

Welcome to Tears of the World, the second book in my True Gaia series! I apologize for taking so long in getting this out, as I've been quite distracted for a long while. Anyway, enjoy this short chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Final Fantasy series. That honor goes to Square Enix or whatever they're calling themselves now. You know who, if you're reading this. It ain't me.

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Tears of the World

Chapter 1: Memories and Discoveries

"Settle down!" The buzz of chatter in the room faded as the instructor entered. Kole barely blinked, jotting down some ideas from his head in his little notebook before closing it and looking up. The girls a few seats away from him didn't seem to even notice the man's words, however, still laughing and chattering away. "Miss Pip, Miss Carson, and Miss Dana! Class has begun!" The three girls turned as they heard their names called, and the leader of the two smiled apologetically to her friends before darting over to her seat, right next to Kole.

"Today, we will be discussing names." Kole blinked at this, already leaning his face on his hand, elbow planted firmly on the desk before him. The teacher wrote a series of names on the blackboard, making the class wince whenever the chalk decided to squeak. They all were wishing that the man would switch to using a whiteboard, like the rest of the educators had.

The tanned boy sighed as the teacher lectured on how the meaning of one's name affected how they thought of themselves, and glanced over at the girl sitting next to him. Taking notes, how typical of a prep. He happened to pride himself on being able to listen to a lecture and understanding it without having to take notes.

"Split up into pairs and start deciphering your names! If there isn't someone you want to do this with, turn to the person next to you!" Kole groaned slightly and closed his eyes for a moment. He had really crappy luck today. The only friend he had in this class hadn't come in today, because he'd gotten sick with the flu. Which meant he got stuck with someone else as a partner.

"You mind if we team up?" Kole blinked at the girl sitting next to him, bright hazel eyes on him. "My friends generally pair up by themselves." The brunette waved her hands towards the other two girls who were already leaning over a piece of paper together.

"Sure. Since Geoff isn't here today." The girl started to shuffle for a piece of paper in her messenger bag backpack, whereas Kole simply grabbed a folder and plucked a blank sheet out. "Here." The girl blinked at him, and then smiled slightly.

"Thanks." The girl then pulled out a book that confused Kole. It literally was a book on names. "I usually carry this around for my stories. But I think we can use it for this assignment, if I put down which information we got from it."

Kole wrote down his full name under the girl's, blinking at it for a moment. It was about as strange as his own. "Your middle name's Igraine?" The girl blushed slightly. "I'm not saying it's bad or anything, I've just never met anyone with that name." The girl looked aside.

"It was my grandmother's name. I swear that my ancestors loved the Arthurian legends." Kole smirked slightly.

"Well, if you could choose your name, what would it be?" The brunette tilted her head to the side, thinking. Kole patiently waited for her response, glaring at his own name.

"I never really thought about it...But I think I would choose Eireann." Kole lifted an eyebrow at the choice as the girl quickly wrote it down. "It means 'Ireland'. The land of my ancestors." Kole hummed thoughtfully about that, looking at the name. "What about you?" Kole smirked slightly. He already knew what name he would have, if he could choose. "Your middle name's pretty interesting as well. Wolfe...Named after the majestic animal, perhaps?" Kole rolled his eyes.

"Granpa was named Wolfgang. Dad decided to name me after him, but be nice and shorten it." The girl was flipping through the name book as he was talking.

"Well, your first name makes sense, at least." Kole blinked at her. "'From a surname which was originally derived from the Old English nickname 'Cola', or charcoal, denoting a person with dark features.' You certainly have dark features. Very tan with dark hair." The girl giggled slightly, as Kole gaped at her.

"That's not the point of the assignment," he groaned, as he let his head hit his desk with a soft thunk. The girl giggled slightly.

"Well, at least it's more favorable than Cassandra. I'd really rather not be named after a seer that was never believed and was eventually killed." Kole blinked at her. That was right. Cassandra from Greek myth was a rather tragic character. "Anyway. If you could choose your name, what would it be?" Kole smirked again.

"Drake." Cassandra blinked at the speedy answer. "I rather like dragons, so if I could I would want to be named after them. After all, they are one of the most powerful totem animals a person could have." The girl's eyes gained a fascinated gleam.

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"Drake! Hey, wake up!"

"Zidane, move back." Drake felt his head being lifted up, and liquid being poured between his lips.

"Is he gonna be alright?" The archer grimaced slightly as the taste of the liquid reached his mind, and he coughed slightly.

"He'll be just fine." A sense of dizziness started to make itself known as Drake started to pry his eyes open, squinting up at the friends that were blocking out the rain. "You see?"

"Someone tell the world to stop spinning," the archer croaked, making his friends laugh. The man managed to make himself sit up, and lifted his bare left hand to his forehead, grimacing. "Talk about a headache." Drake's eyes then widened as he realized something.

The dream he'd had...It hadn't been a dream. It had been a memory, and one that he had forgotten! It was of when he and Cassandra had first spoken. They hadn't hit if off right away, like most stereotypical romances did, but they had worked decently well enough together.

"Drake?" The archer lifted his head as he realized his name had been called. "What's wrong, you look a little shaken." The man chuckled as he stood, wobbling and having to be supported by the thief to his right.

"I'm fine. I just realized I could remember my name. My birth name." The look of happy surprise on Zidane's face made the archer carefully shake his head. "Kind of a weird name, though. Kole Wolfe Cassius." Freya tilted her head to the side.

"I've met a man named Kole before, but never have I heard those other two names." Drake smiled slightly, and accepted the pieces that he'd taken off to fight from Vivi, who had gathered them up. Only when he had everything on did he notice something missing.

"Dammit, I was hoping that had just been me being delusional." The rest looked to the frowning archer, wondering what he was talking about. "That...woman," Drake twisted the word to make it sound like he'd meant it as an insult, "took the ribbon I had tied around my right arm." Zidane frowned.

"Can't you just get another one, Dra-I mean Kole?" Drake frowned. Yes, he could, but that ribbon had already been worn down enough that it was comfortable.

"Just call me Drake, Zidane. I'm used to that name by now. And I could, but...It wouldn't be the same. My old ribbon was worn down a bit, and a new one would chafe." Zidane nodded to Drake's request as Freya tilted her head down a little.

"Regardless, we need to get going. Is everyone feeling up to traveling?" Drake paused a moment to do a mental check of himself. His lungs still felt odd, like ice cubes had been chucked into his chest and were slowly melting, and he was still feeling pretty disoriented, and his skin stung from the rain hitting the cuts that had yet to fully heal...but he was good to go.

"I'm alright." Freya looked at him skeptically. "I'm a ranged fighter, remember. I can handle more aches and pains than a melee fighter can. I just have to worry more about the lack of distance between me and the enemy." Freya rolled her eyes at the slight joke before nodding to Zidane, showing that she was ready to go as well.

"I-I'm alright, too." Vivi stood up from where he had been sitting, and Quina nodded to show that it was fine as well.

"Alright. Everyone good with heading to Cleyra?" Drake nodded, soon mimicked by Vivi and Quina.

"Um...Do you think we'll learn more about those black mages if we go to Cleyra?" Drake looked to Vivi. The kid was pretty strong already, magically. And he'd developed a lot since the archer had first met him.

"Yeah, I'd say we'll learn a lot about them as long as we follow Brahne and that Kuja guy." Drake noticed Zidane glancing at him. "You sure you're alright, though, Drake? I mean...we had to fight your girl..." Drake shook his head, an angry look in his eyes.

"Anastasia is not, and never was, my girl. She merely looked like her, and I was unable to separate the two in my head. Once I realized what she is really like, I discovered I could fight her." All of the others looked at Drake, surprised at the vehemence and poison in his words. "And I will fight her without holding back the next I meet her." Zidane nodded solemnly to Drake as the archer started to calm himself down.

"Oh! What about the princess?" Drake mentally thanked the little black mage for changing the subject to something Zidane would pay more attention to.

"Dagger? I'd never forget about her! She might not be here in Burmecia, but I know we'll find her soon." Drake brushed some water from his face as he adjusted the yellow fabric on his head, his eyes slightly sad. Zidane had no idea what Dagger would be like the next time he saw her. "Well, let's move out!"

"Some say it lies in the desert west of Burmecia, but I know not whether we can enter the town itself." Freya crossed her arms, bowing her head to look down. Zidane growled under his breath, seeming a little aggravated at their pessimism.

"Brighten up a little! We'll figure it out when we get there!" With that, they started off, backtracking the way they had come, back to the entrance of Burmecia.

Drake checked his bow for splintering as he followed the others out of the city. It wasn't in direct danger of breaking, but it was starting to show its use, unfortunately. He was going to have to replace it soon enough. Perhaps they had some kind of bow that he could buy in Cleyra, because he was really going to need it by then.

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Drake groaned as he looked up at the cloudless sky above them. He was sweating like crazy, and the turban wasn't doing as much as he had hoped it would. The sand was getting everywhere, too. He was pretty sure he was going to need to empty his quivers of sand once they got out of this desert. And to add to the misery, there was a huge twister of sand that they were walking towards.

In the game, he had figured out that it was just a pair of textures turning around and around to make it seem like a twister. When it was right in front of him, though, it was most definitely sand. Sand that could grind skin away at a moment's notice. Sand that could lodge in one's hair and heat up uncomfortably. Sand that could ruin the finish on his bow.

As they trudged closer to the storm, though, the twister seemed to be getting weaker and weaker, until it was bearable. That wasn't to say that the sand getting whipped into his face didn't sting, though.

"The tempest subsides...by the gods!" Freya certainly hadn't been expecting the sands to not blast away their skin. Drake was simply grateful for little things like that. Now, what he'd be even more grateful would be for an elevator to take them all the way to the top so that he could rest. Those spells he had been hit by in Burmecia were still affecting him. His arms were covered with small scabs from where the ice had sliced his skin up nicely.

"C'mon, let's go while we can!" Drake nodded to Zidane, though he was sure the thief didn't see. The archer was lagging more towards the back of the group, after all.

"Indeed. Let us press on." Vivi had a hand to his hat, trying to keep it from being blown away. Drake's makeshift turban was securely tied to his head, thankfully, though he was starting to wish that he had put it over his ears, to keep sand from getting in there.

'One extreme to the next, it seems. Next thing I know, we'll be at Mount Gulug.' Drake sighed through his nose as the rest started to run, and he started to as well, the movements taking far more energy from him than he would have liked. He had a feeling he would force the group to stop far too soon.

The archer started to daze as he walked, the heat taking its toll on him. Freya was constantly glancing over her shoulder at him to make sure that he was still with them and hadn't fallen unconscious.

"Drake! Watch out!" The archer blinked at the sudden call, and yelped in pain as something hit his back, sending him to the sandy floor. An extra wave of heat, courtesy of Vivi's Fire spell, made him wince, and he stayed down until he heard the sound of two light things falling to the sand. "Are you alright?" Drake winced as he pushed himself up, the motion taking far too much effort.

"No. No, he isn't." Rather strong arms helped the archer to stand, and Drake blinked slightly at Zidane. "You saw how that bitch was targeting him in Burmecia. He got hurt worse than the rest of us. Come on, we're gonna rest for a bit." Drake frowned slightly, considering lying to Zidane and telling him that he was perfectly able to continue on.

Unfortunately for Drake, the door led outside, and the winds started to beat on him again. A dark form went past them, and Drake considered it for a moment. That had looked like a Zuu. Definitely not a good sign for them. Zidane had already disappeared to trigger the next sequence, and Freya suddenly dragged Drake out of the way as a stream of sand started to pour out of the door they had just exited.

"So much for staying in there for a little while." Zidane had walked back down the steep path he had gone up, and looked up at the vine leading to a second opening in the trunk, this one not pouring sand. "Think you've got it in you for a climb, Drake?" The archer mentally checked his already low energy levels.

"I think so. After that, though..." Zidane nodded, showing that he understood. Freya climbed up the vine first, and then Vivi and Quina, the gourmand surprisingly helping the mage to not fall. Zidane looked to Drake, and nodded, showing that he was to go next.

The archer sighed and started the climb, feeling his muscles complain with each movement. He was wrong about his energy, it seemed, but it wasn't like he could back down now. His pride was keeping him going.

A couple of yells of panic made Drake start to turn his head to see what they saw, but something hard and unforgiving clenched around his middle, pulling him off of the vine. Drake finally got a glimpse of what it was as he was pulled away from the tree. His eyes widened as he saw black feathers. A Zuu.

"Let go of him!" Drake whipped his head back around to see Vivi calling up a fireball as adrenaline started to surge through his system, seeming to slow down time. Freya was crouching to jump, and Zidane was looking on despairingly, holding the archer's bow.

Time sped up again, and Drake yelped as he was tossed up into the air by the Zuu in preparation to being swallowed. The fireball exploded as he was grabbed by something decidedly softer than the Zuu's beak, and dragged along with back to the trunk. Drake stared up at the sand-blasted wood above him, trying to decipher what had just happened.

Freya had saved him. At the same time as Vivi's magic attack, she had used her powerful legs to reach the Zuu and bounce off of it, using that impact to not only knock the bird away from them, but also to get to Drake and get back to the tree safely.

"Freya! Drake! Are you two alright?" Drake turned his head to look at his thief friend, still lying on the ground. He forced himself to lift a hand and give his friend a thumbs-up before the adrenaline in him faded, taking him with it.

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To say that Zidane panicked when Drake passed out was an understatement. Freya had to punch him in order to get him to pay attention to what she was saying, and Vivi was staring at them, also worried for the friendly archer.

"Zidane, he'll be fine. He's just worn out from that scare. You saw how he was struggling to keep up before. The encounter with that bird took the rest of his energy." Zidane, rubbing his abused cheek, had to agree with her. The thief hadn't been sure the archer would be able to get up the vine, anyway. He'd seen how his friend had been struggling with it.

"My, my! I'm certainly glad that you all managed to get away from the Zuu unharmed!" All of those who were still conscious jumped at the feminine voice that came from behind them, Freya and Zidane both reaching for their weapons. "Ah, please, I mean you no harm. I merely wish to help the one my sister found so charming." Zidane narrowed his eyes at the strange woman.

Her hair was the same yellow-green as the leaves high above on the tree, and her skin was the same odd blue-brown as the trunk was in the shadows. Indeed, as they watched, she stepped out of the tree itself, her foot a formless blob before the toes became defined and the foot touched the ground. Sand swept up her form, creating flowing garments that hid her more...personal features. Had Drake been conscious, he would have been stricken by how similar her garb was to the dancers atop the tree.

"And you are?" The woman smiled at Freya's question, and swept a bow towards them, as graceful as the wind itself. Zidane was a little shocked at the woman, or perhaps the fact that he had seen of her something that most women did not openly show.

"I am the spirit of this tree. I am Cleyra." Freya paused for a moment, her eyes resting on the woman, though not as suspiciously as before.

"You are...a Constellato?" The dryad smiled at the Dragon Knight, and knelt to gently touch Drake's forehead. A couple of whispered words, and the archer's eyes flickered open, though it was apparent that he wasn't fully awake.

"Rise, Chosen of my sister Maria. This place is not safe for resting." Drake sat up and grumbled incoherently, and was helped up by a bemused Freya. "He shall not remember this after he's rested properly. There is a moogle nearby. He will give you a place to stay for the night." The Constellato gently patted Drake's face before smiling at those he had been traveling with and stepping back into the wood, her clothing dissolving back into sand as her form merged with the tree once again.

"...That was...unexpected." Zidane handed Drake's bow to Vivi, and tossed the archer's arm over his shoulder, his other hand gripping his belt. He and Freya together helped to get the semi-conscious man across the now sand-filled room, hoping that they would reach the moogle without incident.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Vivi yelped as he tripped over a red crystal half-buried in the sand. Drake's bow flew from his grasp to land near the exit. Zidane and Freya turned around to look at the little mage, who was slowly getting to his feet. The sand behind the black mage moved and shifted on its own, making the Dragon Knight reach for her spear, her eyes on the suspicious mass.

The sand suddenly surged up to tower over poor Vivi, the red crystal the boy had tripped over resting in the sand golem's chest. Zidane started to put Drake down as Freya started to ready for a lunge.

However, a form emerged from the wooden wall next to them, sand rushing up to cover her as she stepped forth. The Constellato Cleyra glared at the sand golem for a moment before lifting her arms and starting to dance, turning in place slowly at first, and then faster and faster.

Vivi scurried over to cower behind Quina as the wind started to kick up. It carried away the sand that made up the core's puppet, and, once all the sand was gone, kept the crystal floating in the air. Cleyra spun far faster than any human could stand to do so, and the winds around the crystal intensified, causing cracks to spiderweb across the strange substance's surface.

Cleyra stopped suddenly, and the creature she had been attacking fell apart, landing in many pieces on the sandy ground. The Constellato sighed slightly and ran a hand across her blue-brown forehead before smiling at the group of travelers she had just protected.

"It's been a while since I fought last. That took a little longer than I'd hoped it would. Go on, the moogle isn't far now." The Constellato waved them on as she stood in the center of the room, a wide smile on her face and her hands on her hips.

The adventurers exchanged looks before continuing up the wooden tunnel that the Constellato had gestured towards. Zidane noticed that Drake was pretty much asleep again, even though he was moving his feet to keep walking.

Freya helped the thief drag the archer up the shifting slope of sand up to where a moogle was watching them. Vivi was the first one there, surprisingly, and filled in the confused creature as Quina tested the leaves nearby to see if they were edible.

"Kupo! My, he's really bad off! Here, in here." The moogle led Zidane and Freya into its little abode, though surprisingly, it was larger than they had expected. "I'm the one that Miss Cleyra will visit the most often, so occasionally I'll get the priests from up above coming down to talk to me. Here now, let's see what exactly is wrong with this man here, kupo." The moogle gestured towards a normal-sized bed sitting off to the side of his little home, and Zidane helped Drake to lay down there.

The moogle immediately started to hop around the unconscious archer, 'kupo'ing to himself from time to time. Zidane sat against the wall, watching, as Freya went outside, likely to stretch. Vivi was sitting not too far from the thief, also watching, and Quina had yet to come up the sand slope.

"Hm. Well, there really isn't much wrong with him, kupo. He's just exhausted, mentally and physically. Can he cast some kind of magic?" Zidane blinked at the moogle's words, and thought a little. It used to be that Drake would just shoot an arrow off, but recently, whenever he took his time and aimed, his arrows did something that they weren't physically able to do.

"I...I think so. Why, did he use too much of it in too short a period of time?" The moogle nodded, looking to the archer again. Zidane frowned and crossed his arms against his chest. Here he had thought that Drake was sensible enough to not push himself to exhaustion, and he does exactly that.

"He should be alright by nightfall, kupo. He doesn't seem to have terribly much mana. Were he a full blown mage and in this state, it would take him a month to fully recover." Zidane's eyes widened. "With how much mana he has, though, I think even a Fire spell would put him out, kupo."

That announcement made Zidane calm a little faster. His friend wasn't able to use too much magic anyway. He had thought that maybe the archer had enough to last a while, but it seemed he didn't. Even Vivi seemed a bit startled at how little mana Drake had.

"B-but he got so much use out of it...And he doesn't even really seem to know what he does, half the time." Zidane looked at Vivi, wondering what he was talking about. The thief didn't know the first thing about magic, but at least there was someone in the group that did.

"Cleyra's told me that some people use magic subconsciously, kupo. Those are usually the ones that the Constellato choose to favor. Your friend uses his magic with his weapon, right? That doesn't take nearly as much mana as it does to form a spell in the air, kupo." Zidane stared at the moogle as it explained to him. He had known nothing of magic before. And, actually, it sounded sort of like what he did when he was in Trance...only he wasn't taking the energy from inside of him, but from around him...from the Mist.

For some reason, the Mist never seemed to feel malevolent to him. It was just like walking through steam, only not as warm. There was no extra presence like he'd heard others mention. Except for when he Tranced. And then it was more like the air around him was _alive_.

The thief shivered slightly at the thought, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. His eyes were focused on his feet, just a couple of feet in front of him. His tail was twitching nervously to his side, and his hands were loosely grasping his ankles.

"Are you alright, kupo?" Zidane lifted his eyes from his feet, his eyes taking a few seconds to focus. "You look like you have a fever. Here." A wet cloth was offered to the monkey-tailed man, who blinked at it for a moment before taking it and placing it on the back of his neck, tilting his head down with a relieved sigh. The moogle was right. He was getting a fever. He could feel it. He knew it'd be gone by morning, though. He never stayed sick long.

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And that's that! Hopefully I'll be able to get out the next chapter before too long. Again, I apologize for taking to long. Read and reveiw, please!


	2. Into the Maw

Kittypoptart: Yay! Another chapter!

Dreylen: ...what are you doing here? o.O

Kittypoptart: Helping~

Dreylen: Er...right. Anyway. ~turns to audience~ Don't mind her, she's the younger sister of my boyfriend. And seeing as several of my friends are suggesting music for their stories, I have one to suggest!

Kittypoptart: Oh! Oh! Is it Katethegreat19's rendition of Cleyra?

Dreylen: ~facepalms~ Yes. Yes, it is. When the characters finally reach the settlement, I suggest going and finding Katethegreat19 on YouTube. She is an amazing musician.

Also, I'm sorry, but I have to do this shout-out. And the Adversary Suceeds is an amazing fanfic writer, and his Final Fantasy X stories are absolutely inspired. They're the perfect mix of epic and humorous. Go and read them!

Kittypoptart: Also, many thanks to Anasazi Darkmoon for continued support!

Dreylen: Yes. I probably would have lost my muse a while ago, if not for her feedback. Kit, you wanna do the disclaimer?

Kittypoptart: Sure! _**Dreylen doesn't own anything here except for Drake and his archery abilities. **_

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Chapter 2: Into the Maw

Drake groaned slightly as he became aware of his pounding headache. He was far too warm, and he felt pretty dirty, like there was sand stuck to his skin under his clothes. There was a cloth on his head, but it was rough, and felt a bit stiff.

"No, we're not gonna leave him behind! You said that he'd be better by nightfall, and that was last night!" Who was yelling so loud? It made his head feel so much worse...

"Zidane, you forget. Out of all in our group, he is the only full human! I don't mean to sound like he's lesser than either of us, but humans have a tendency to get sick easier!"That was...Freya? She sounded annoyed.

"Yeah, but Drake's strong! Besides, there's NO _WAY_ I'm leaving him behind! The brothers of Tantalus always stick together!" That meant that Zidane was the one yelling. Something about leaving him behind?

"Guys...?"

"We don't have the time to wait for him to recover from his fever! We need to warn the Cleyrans of the coming attack!" Drake grumbled slightly under his breath as he tried to pry an eye open. It was far harder than he thought it would be.

"Guys..."

"So one of us can go on ahead while the other three wait behind!"

"KUPO-PO!"

Drake managed to finally get an eye open, and winced at the volume of the moogle's voice. The silence that came from the others stated that they had been caught off-guard as well.

"Drake's waking up."

Footsteps sounded as the blurry shapes in Drake's vision moved, and strong arms helped him to sit up. The archer coughed, wincing again at how rough his throat felt. The rim of a wooden cup was pressed to his lips, and he carefully sipped the water. It was pretty hard to get it past the lump in his throat.

Something slightly cool was pressed against his forehead, and he blinked, his eyes starting to focus themselves. The faces of Zidane and Freya started to come into focus, along with Vivi and a moogle in the background.

"Still a slight fever, but not as high as before." Drake grumbled slightly, and a cool cloth was placed on the back of his neck by Zidane. A slight twitch of the archer's lips indicated a grateful smile, but the man was still so out of it that he didn't have as much energy as he should have.

"Here, kupo. This will help." Drake blinked at the small bar of some sort of grain, and bit off the corner before chewing it slowly. It took a while, but he did start to feel more of his energy come back.

"How long have I been out?" Zidane looked to Drake as the archer asked the question, Vivi and Freya having gone out to make sure that Quina hadn't gotten eaten by something.

"Quite a bit of yesterday and most of the morning. It's almost noon now." Drake frowned. What had happened to the time? He could remember climbing the vine...and nearly getting eaten by a Zuu...

"What happened to the bird?" Zidane frowned a little bit, tilting his head to the side. Drake merely blinked at him. Had something else happened since he had fallen asleep? And just how far from that vine were they? Their trip up the trunk to that vine hadn't been accurately portrayed in the game, that much Drake was sure of.

"We ran away from it. You were out cold by then." Drake munched on another piece of the bar, allowing his eyes to close a little bit. He was starting to wonder what was in the bar that brought his energy back so fast, but he also figured that once he knew, he wouldn't want to. He hadn't seen many small mammals on the trunk, nor could he see the moogle harvesting much of a crop of plants.

"Hm...How far did you guys have to drag me?" An odd look crossed Zidane's face, and the archer looked at him, now knowing for sure that something had happened while he was out of it.

"Not too far. This is sort of in the middle of the trunk, though. The moogle helped us to get over a fever. I had one, too." Drake looked at his friend, showing him that he could still tell that he was hiding something. "...There was a Constellato, too." Drake's eyebrows rose.

"A Constellato?" Zidane smirked a little, seeing the curiosity in the archer's eyes. "Here? What..." Drake trailed off and rubbed a hand to his forehead. Zidane frowned, until he noticed his friend chuckling. "Didn't think I could think so fast I could give myself a headache."

"Then you need to be more careful, then. Don't want you to hurt yourself." Drake lifted his eye to look his thief friend in the eye. Zidane was sobered slightly as he saw that the man's eyes were worryingly hard.

Drake was trying to act normal. He was hiding the fact that he was still traumatized by Burmecia. Zidane could see the hardness in his eyes. He wasn't the same carefree, oblivious archer that he had been when they had crashed in the Evil Forest, that much was true. That was when he had started to harden his heart.

"Anyway...When are we going to continue on? Much as she knows that it's unlikely she'll make it if she goes alone, I can't imagine Freya waiting for too much longer." Zidane nodded, and stood, looking about. He grabbed Drake's quivers and bow, and tossed them to him. The archer easily caught all of them, tucking his legs under him so that he could stand easier. "Ow." Unfortunately, unlike Zidane, Drake was tall enough to hit his head on the ceiling where he was. The sleeping nook had a lower ceiling than the rest of the moogle's dwelling.

"Watch your head." Drake sent Zidane a flat look, and rubbed the top of his head. The flat look disappeared as the archer stepped outside, and he closed his eyes for a moment, lifting a hand to shield his eyes.

"Drake!" The archer squinted a bit past the light to smile slightly at Vivi. The black mage was standing on the other side of the little river of sand, and Freya was below, speaking to Quina.

"Ah, you're up, finally." Drake and Zidane both looked to Freya as the woman looked up at them. "We were all concerned when it was discovered that you had a fever." Drake picked his way across the moving sand, seeming to shed sand as he moved.

"I've heard that not getting into dry clothes after being cold and wet is a good way to get sick. That's probably what happened to me. And I'm human to boot, so it's more likely that I would get sick than anyone else here." Drake waved the hand that wasn't blocking the light from his face expressively, a slight smile on his lips.

"Still, I wish it hadn't happened." Drake rolled his eyes and looked around the area. Quina, seeing that Drake was indeed up and moving about, bounded up the sandy path. Freya followed along after, moving gracefully despite the shifting sand. "Shall we get going, then?" Drake nodded, showing that he was well enough to continue on.

The slope upwards was steep, and Zidane stuck near to Drake, helping him to avoid falling flat on his face, as he was still fairly weak. They weren't very far from the moogle's house, and already he was mostly out of breath. He shook his head when he noticed that the monkey-tailed man was thinking about turning back, though.

"I can keep going. I'm not gonna hold everyone back anymore." They finally reached an area where the wood was carved into stairs, though, and the sand was a bit thinner, cascading in falls out of various nooks and crannies.

Once they reached the wooden bridge, they paused to let Drake catch his breath, noticing that the man was winded. He looked up at the sky, resting his bow across his knees. He really wasn't sure if he'd be of much use in a fight, as he was now. He needed more time to rest, and he didn't think he'd be getting it any time soon.

Drake finally caught his breath, and stood to turn and look at the bridge. He hadn't noticed in the game, as it had simply been a short screen, but...there were no railings. Well, there were, but someone had cut them at some point in time, or they had eroded, and they no longer served their purpose, hanging down towards the base of the trunk.

Zidane peered over the edge, holding onto the post the bridge was tied to, and kicked a bit of sand down into the abyss. His tail was still for a moment, and then waved as the thief stepped back onto firmer ground.

"Yeesh. Fun bridge." Drake glared at Zidane for the sarcastic comment, and then noticed that Quina was already on the other side. So the bridge would hold their weight at least. There were...a couple of broken boards, but they had been thin ones anyway.

"Least we know it'll hold weight..." Drake cautiously started across the bridge, carefully holding his bow out in front of him to help him balance. 'Cass would be having a panic attack right about now...Gods, this bridge moves so much!'

A slightly ragged breath came from Drake as his feet touched solid ground again, and he looked over his shoulder at the bridge. The reason for the bridge moving so much became apparent as he saw Zidane was halfway across the bridge with Vivi on his back. Freya was waiting at the other side for them to cross.

Drake stepped through the odd doorway to a series of tunnels. He grumbled under his breath, peering through the rather dim light. It didn't look exactly like the screen in the game, but he had a feeling that this was a bit of a maze, and not the straight-forward part of the trunk from the game. Quina was sniffing about, though.

"Well...now what?" Drake looked to the others, who were looking about, just as confused as he was. Freya took off her hat and closed her eyes, her large ears twitching slightly as she listened.

"I hear no people, just the wind." Drake nodded to Freya's announcement, and closed his own eyes, feeling the wind against him. He lifted a hand and pointed in the direction it was coming from.

"Feels like the wind is coming from there. So the exit should be in that direction." Freya and Zidane looked at each other, and nodded, apparently trusting Drake's information.

"If the archer can tell where the wind is, that's where the wind is," Zidane joked, clapping a hand on Drake's shoulder as he started in the direction Drake pointed out. Drake shook his head, a slight smile on his face as he followed his friends.

They had to stop a few more times to allow Drake to pinpoint where the flow of the wind was coming from. The archer actually started to doubt himself when they spotted daylight in the distance. That light was enough to boost their mood, and they paused at the exit, looking at the dimming light ahead of them.

"We spent the whole day in that labyrinth," Drake muttered, sitting down at the wooden opening, staring out at the whirlwind of sand spinning about the tree. This was farther along than he remembered. They must have passed through the other areas while Drake was lost in his own thoughts.

"Hm. I'm surprised that you managed to get past those sandpits without falling in, Drake. You were staring off into the distance the entire time." Drake rubbed the back of his head, looking a little sheepish. Certainly explained why he didn't remember the screens that they had gone through.

"Well, we'll rest here for the night. This passageway is still covered, protected by from the Zuu." Drake nodded, and sat down against the wall, pulling his quivers off and setting them to the side before stretching.

A loud growl made them all turn, and Drake stared back at them, his face starting to turn red from embarrassment. Freya couldn't help but laugh, and tossed him a small bag of rations.

"I was wondering when your stomach would catch up with you. You haven't eaten all day." Drake pulled out a strip of jerked meat, and started to munch on it slowly, allowing his eyes to close as he fell into a sort of meditative trance. "How does he do that? He just closes his eyes, and it's like he fell asleep."

"Dunno, really. He does it sometimes during battle, too. He'll just zone out, and he starts hitting everything he points an arrow at." Did he? Hunh. Well, it sort of made sense. He did concentrate hard, and it was similar to what he was doing at the moment.

"It's similar to the concentration I use to cast spells. To be aware of everything around you while being in a state of rest is the first step to magic." Hm. And to think, Drake had learned how to do that years ago. So had Cassandra, to think of it...

"Which begs the question how an archer managed to learn the technique." Had Drake not been in the state he was in, he might have chuckled.

"Feeling the correct way." Silence greeted the archer's words, though he continued to sit cross-legged with his hands loosely clasped in his lap. "It's the same way I learned to act." That got a slightly confused sound from Zidane.

"Just how many secrets do you have?" Freya's question got a slight twitch from Drake. His breathing pattern didn't change at all, though. Nor did his facial expression change any.

"Far too many."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Drake opened his eyes as daylight started to seep through his eyelids, and he stood, feeling his muscles complain about keeping him in a sitting position for the whole night. He'd fallen asleep like that so many times before, though, that his body was used to it.

They were so high up that though the sun was hitting his eyes where he was in the trunk of Cleyra, the base of the tree was still in darkness. It was sort of similar to how certain parts of Lindblum got light earlier in the day than the slums, so he understood it...and actually rather enjoyed it, waking up naturally from the sun, but still waking up fairly early.

"Ah, you're recovering nicely from your mana exhaustion." Drake jumped as he heard a female voice from beside him, and reached for an arrow from his quiver. He paused as he saw the strange woman standing there.

"You are...the Constellato that helped earlier?" The woman smiled brightly. Drake blinked at her, straightening from his aware, ready to fight stance.

"You're as bright as a true Chosen should be! No wonder Maria blessed you before you truly came into your own." Drake blinked at the woman, a little confused at her actions. "I am Cleyra. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Drake blinked again as the Constellato bowed gracefully to him, hands held out to the sides as a dancer would. He stared at the woman curiously. There were the faint patterns of bark along her skin, and her hair was slightly mussed, as if it were made partially of leaves. Her clothes looked like what he'd imagined the dancers of Cleyra's to look like, adjusted to the body of a humanoid.

"You are...a dryad?" The woman smiled brightly again, seeming to be very pleased. "And judging by your choice in garb...the patron Constellato of the Dancers?" The dryad spun on the ball of her foot, giggling slightly. Drake took a step back, a slightly weirded out look on his face.

"Ooh, you're so perceptive! You'll continue to grow, I know it!" Drake's mental evaluation of the Constellato continued to lean more towards considering her to be very creepy. "Anyway, you aren't far from the settlement. You should be there by midday!" Drake offered the Constellato a thin, slightly wary, polite smile.

"Ah, thank you..." Drake was distracted by his friends waking up, and, when he looked back to the Constellato, found that she wasn't there anymore, just a small pile of sand along the relatively flat sand of the ground under him.

"Mm...You were talkin' to someone, Drake?" The archer smiled at his thief friend, and stretched his arms over his head, looking out at the sandstorm again.

"That Constellato that you told me about decided to come and chat. She's...kinda wacky." Zidane chuckled at Drake's declaration. He couldn't deny that he thought the same of the eccentric Constellato. "Told me that we should be in the settlement by midday, though." Zidane sighed with happiness, flopping back to where he had fallen asleep.

"Finally, we're almost there. It feels like it's been forever since we left Lindblum." Drake nodded silently, his eyes hard. It truly did feel like a lifetime since he had last seen the city.

"Are we?" Drake and Zidane both turned their heads to see Freya standing and stretching. Vivi was still snoring softly away, curled up against the wall near to Quina. "That truly is a relief." Drake nodded, and accepted a strip of jerked meat from Freya, who munched methodically on her own as she did a few warm-up exercises a little ways off to the side of the group.

Vivi had to be roused by Drake, who was as kind as possible as he did so, and Quina merely had to have a bit of jerky waved over its face. Once they were all ready to go, they walked along the tunnel, Drake occasionally glancing out towards the sandstorm.

They were in the odd passageway for quite some time, spiraling around the trunk. They came out to a rather open area, though, and Drake paused to allow the wind to make his hair flail about, closing his eyes as he allowed the others to walk past him.

"Look out!" Drake's eyes snapped open as he heard the shout, and spun his bow into his hands, looking around to see what the problem was, just in time to see the business end of a Zuu's mouth.

Drake's longbow was knocked from his hand as the slimy wetness of the Zuu's throat closed around him. His arms were pinned to his sides, and he held his breath, hoping that Zidane and the others would kill the Zuu quickly. He could feel the muscles of the Zuu's throat constricting around him, and fought the urge to retch, feeling his lungs start to burn with the need to breath as he felt his skin start to burn as well. Looked like he wasn't really in the throat anymore. He was in its stomach!

The flesh surrounding Drake writhed, pushing hard against him, trying to squeeze the air out of him. And then, suddenly, it stopped pressing against him, and something touched his face, wiping the slime from it. The slime was cleared from his nose and mouth, and he gasped for air, keeping his eyes closed for the moment.

"Drake! Drake! You alright?" Drake coughed slightly, tasting and smelling the blood, bile, and guts of the bird that had swallowed him.

"He's breathing, at least. Here, help him sit up." Arms supported Drake and moved him so that he could breath better. Something was splashed on his face, and he felt the burning slime washed away.

"Agh...That is _not_ an experience I want to repeat." Chuckles came from Freya and Zidane as Drake opened his eyes and lifted a hand to wipe away the bangs from his eyes as he stood, sand sticking to him.

"Glad to see you're at least still alive." Drake gave his friend a slight smile, and shook his head as he was offered his bow back, showing his slightly reddening hands.

"Acid. Don't want to ruin the finish." Zidane nodded, and moved the bow to his tail. Freya had Drake's empty quivers, but the one that had been full of arrows was now looking definitely less than top quality.

Freya led the way to the top, with Vivi and Quina along behind, and Zidane followed behind them, leaving Drake to climb the ladder last. It took quite a bit of energy for the archer to get up the ladder, but once he did, he sighed as he saw even more stairs. The others were waiting for him, and the five of them climbed up to the Cleyra settlement.

Partway up the stairs, Drake got fed up with how his bangs were sticking to his face, and pulled out his belt knife, noticing that he was going to need to get a new one because of how it was starting to erode, and grabbed the patch of bangs that were starting to annoy him. He swiped his blade along the top of his hand, cutting off the offending patch of hair before throwing it off to the side and sheathing the blade again.

"Might you be Lady Freya?" Drake blinked slightly lazily as he heard a quavery old woman's voice, and peered up the stairs. There were the oracles of Cleyra, looking far older than he had thought they would.

"Indeed, I am." Drake got up the stairs last, and huffed slightly as he looked up at the treetop town. He really needed to increase his stamina.

"We have awaited your coming, my lady." The city was far more beautiful than the game had shown, with the blue sky above the windmills and the blue rooftops blending. The stairs wove in and out of the upper branches, creating a beautiful lattice of walkways that the Cleyrans, young and old, walked along.

"How did you come to know my identity?" Drake almost swore that he saw the dryad Cleyra standing on one of the uppermost branches, still against the brilliant blue sky, reaching a hand up towards the sun.

"The king of Burmecia has requested that we guide you to him." Or was that Cleyra? The figure he saw looked remarkably like her, as if she had been caught in the middle of a dance, one leg lifted just above the ground. There were leaves on what seemed to be her head...No, that couldn't be right, the length of that group of leaves was too long to be merely leaves.

"Long live the king! Take me to him immediately!" Was that Cleyra? Without the sand garments, surely, but still...

"At once, my lady." Well, she really was a dryad, so didn't it make sense that she might have formed part of herself as the tree. Or, was that really her true form? So much to think of...

"Zidane, I shall go to see the king. Why not take this chance to rest? Drake certainly seems as if he could use a bath." Mention of him made the archer blink and look to Freya, who was turning away, a soft smirk on her face.

"Yeah, good idea. I don't know how much longer I can stand the smell of dead Zuu." Drake rolled his eyes towards the sky, an exasperated look on his face.

"As if I asked the bloody thing to swallow me. I'd much rather have not ever experienced that. Being swallowed isn't exactly pleasant." Drake allowed his false smile to drop, and actually glared at Zidane. "My skin is still burning from the acid in its stomach, I've got sand sticking to parts of me I didn't know could be sticky, and I'm still tired. So give me a freaking break!"

Zidane and Freya both exchanged glances during the silence after Drake's outburst, though the archer couldn't read them. Nor was he really looking at them, as he was sitting down with his back to them on the stairs. So he didn't see Freya shake her head before following one of the oracles up the stairs.

"Young sir..." Drake turned his head as the second oracle crouched beside him, politely not covering her nose. "If you wish, I can prepare a bath for you." Drake paused for a moment, controlling his initial reaction to yell once more.

"Yes, I would like that. Thank you." Drake stood and turned, looking up the stairs in time to see Vivi's hat disappear over the edge of the stairs. "Ugh. They _would_ choose to leave me behind." The archer shook his head, and looked down at himself, taking note of just how disgusting he looked.

His vest was slimy, and there were strands of what looked like saliva dripping from his arms. The leather on him was starting to look quite mottled. There was sand stuck to him, all over his skin and his clothes.

"Oh, ewww..." Drake resisted retching as he shook his arms, trying to get the strands off. "Yeah, a bath is definitely in order." The oracle giggled slightly, and led Drake up a small staircase that he hadn't seen in the game.

"This is the cleansing pool." Drake blinked at the clear blue pool that was hidden partially behind a screen of leaves. "Those who return from a voyage down the trunk clean themselves here when they return. I'll fetch some clothes that should fit you. It has been a very long time since a human has visited our holy settlement." The oracle bowed to Drake, and then left down the path.

Drake looked at the beautiful little area, and went behind the screen of leaves before shucking his clothes and setting them into a pile. Something odd that he noticed, though, was that a certain pouch didn't seem to be at all affected by the Zuu's stomach. Even where he placed his fingers on it didn't show any mark of stain, or any sort of stickiness. He gingerly placed his fingers inside, and thought of his metal feather, and held it up to the light as it glimmered cleanly.

"How is it that this thing isn't covered in slime and grossness...?" Drake shook his head slightly and put his Stellazio back into his pouch and set the whole thing down separate from his dirty clothing. He pulled off the last of his dirty clothing and tossed it to the side before going into the pool.

The slime seemed to slip off of him as he surfaced, and he shook his head, lifting his arms clear of the water to look at them. They were slightly reddened from the acid, but they weren't stinging anymore. There was no sign of a slick from the mess he must have made, either, but his hair wasn't exactly unsticking from itself. So under the water again he went, running his fingers through his hair to try to get it cleaned.

"There's a human, really?" Drake's attention was attracted to the speaking people, hidden behind a screen of leaves.

"Yeah, the oracle said so!" The voices sounded fairly young, and male, thankfully. "I heard that they killed the great bird, too!" Drake dunked his head under the water again, trying to disengage the chunks of bird funk from his hair.

"Hellooo?" Drake grumbled as he heard the voice when he came back up, and waded to where he could see who was calling towards him. "Ah!"

"Told you!" Drake rolled his eyes as he pulled a chunk of coagulating Zuu spit from his hair and tossed it to the side,

The two Cleyrans were about up to his elbow, children, really. They were dressed in clothes that were loose, fluttering slightly in the soft breeze in the settlement. One of them was holding a bundle of clothing, and the other was holding Drake's bow and extra quivers.

"Ah...your friend told us to bring your equipment, and the oracle told us to bring you this clothing." Drake blinked, and ran his fingers through his hair again.

"Could you put those over there, with my pouch? It's the only thing that doesn't look like it got hit by several different spells at the same time." The archer flipped a hand towards his things, pulling yet another clump of goo from his hair.

"Sure! Oh, and uh...here!" The one with the clothes tossed the bare archer a vial of something. "It's supposed to clean your hair. Kinda odd, in my opinion. Why anyone would want to use something so expensive for something like that, I don't know." Drake chuckled slightly as he looked at the vial.

"Well, considering that I'm having a big problem getting the dried bird spit out of my hair, I'd say that it's gonna be useful." The Cleyrans blinked at the archer as he dumped the rather thick liquid out into his hand before putting it into his hair, moving out of view of the kids again. He really didn't feel comfortable with bathing in front of people.

The potion or whatever it was worked perfectly to get the gunk out of Drake's hair, thankfully, and the two kids left after a little while. As he simply floated in the bathing pool, he noticed that his bangs had actually managed to be cut level across his forehead. It annoyed him a little bit as he couldn't brush his bangs out of his eyes, but it would be better for his aim.

A slight burning sensation on his left ear made Drake take off his earcuff, though, and he gently washed the skin there, wincing as it was healed by the purifying water. He figured that there was something with the water that was different, but he didn't really feel like going to look at it.

A slight giggle made Drake stiffen, and he looked around warily. She wouldn't dare...would she? It would be just his luck, considering how he'd been getting women after him for the past two years. The only one that he had actually accepted the advances of was Anastasia, and his judgment had failed him in that situation, as he found out later.

As Drake looked around, the Constellato that he was hoping wasn't watching him was drooling over his appearance. Slightly tanned skin, with darker arms because of how much more often they got sun. A silver chain glimmered around his neck, and the pendant appeared to be a coin resting on his sternum. The earcuff that he'd had on his left ear was held in his hand, the acid burn from the Zuu's spit and stomach healing thanks to the magic that was held in the purifying pool. His hair was clean now, thanks to the special oils in the vial he'd been given, so now it was laying damply on his head and neck. She was a little surprised at how good he looked with straight bangs, though, as they had been angled to allow him to see out of his right eye previously.

Cleyra giggled again, and the archer's eyes snapped to where she was. She gaped at that, forgetting for the moment that she could simply hide herself by slipping her form back into her tree. She hadn't been expecting him to be able to pinpoint where she was. However, she didn't know all of what he had gone through, either, so she was as much watching his actions as much as him.

The archer's gaze slipped from her as he continued to look around, still seeming to be wary. She continued to watch him, noticing how buff he was, now that his vest and shirt were gone. His bare arms showed the smooth strength that all archers had, and his torso had the same supple tension. He certainly wasn't like all the rest of the people that Cleyra had seen. Nor were his companions.

The Dragon Knight moved as smoothly as Cleyra's Dancers, but in a more militant grace. As did the thief with the monkey tail, though he seemed to have more of a theatrical grace to him than the Dragon Knight. Drake had that same theatrical grace, but mixed with the strength needed for his archery. The little mage was clumsy, yes, but he had a definite sense of power about him that was as hypnotic as grace. And the fifth member of their group had its own charms, though what they were, the dryad wasn't sure.

The voyeuristic dryad continued to gape as the archer waded out of the water, lifting a hand to cover her nose and mouth as she watched him dress. It took her until the man was out of sight before she removed her hand from her nose and looked at it. Sap dripped from the limb, and she stared at it for a moment, bemused, before allowing that form to merge back into the tree.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Drake tugged at the robes he had been given to wear while his clothes were cleaned. They were a sort of sandy cream color, and were loose and surprisingly comfortable in the heat. He felt that they were similar to what the Arabs back on Earth wore, but he wasn't about to mention it.

The settlement of Cleyra was far more beautiful than he could have ever imagined, and the archer found himself considering how to possibly change the story that he knew. There was so much that he could see about the settlement of Cleyra that had never been covered in the game that he felt it would be like watching his own city go up in flames to see Odin destroy it.

"Ah, you are clean, I see." Drake turned his head to see one of the oracles that had greeted them when they had climbed up the trunk walking towards him. "You are unharmed? Your comrades informed me that the foul bird that has tormented our settlement ate you." The archer chuckled a little.

"My skin was stinging, yes, but the water managed to heal it. The most trouble I had was with my hair." The archer reached up and tugged on his bangs, the slightly friendly smile still on his face. "It was sticking together badly."

"Zuu spit is quite a good glue. It's terribly hard to get, though. The few archers that we have here in Cleyra use it for their arrows." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that. Not at the fact that there were archers in Cleyra, since it was probably one of the better choices for fighting where the flying monsters seemed to rule the area.

"Hm. Is it possible for me to get materials for arrows? I have fletching grade feathers already, but I would like to be able to fill my spare quivers." The oracle blinked at the archer, who was gesturing towards the empty quivers that were slipped over his shoulder.

"I suppose so." The oracle led Drake up to the inn, where several Burmecians stared at the human. Drake, remembering what happened in the game, looked around, looking for a familiar flopped straw hat.

"My friends said that they were going to rest, didn't they?" The oracle blinked at Drake's sudden change in topic, and glanced about as well. "There are a lot of Burmecians around...I hope none of them were mean to Vivi." Drake knew in his heard that the little black mage must have already been yelled at.

"I should hope that they are able to see the difference between your friends and those who attacked Burmecia. If you wish to, you may rest at the inn for free, as a guest of the oracles." Drake blinked at that, looking directly into the eyes of the Cleyran next to him. "We are able to identify a Chosen when we see one. Of them all, the archers are said to be one of the most level-headed." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that.

"I'm afraid my emotions are more likely to get into the way as I am right now. I only recently was introduced to battle, and..." The archer shook his head, his eyes shadowed as he recalled how he had acted not only in Gizamaluke's Grotto, but also in Burmecia.

"And you are yet recovering. I see. Cleyra has been a peaceful home for us for so long that it often slips the mind that others are not as blessed." Drake smiled slightly at the Oracle's understanding, and looked up towards the sky. He felt exhausted, but it was still quite bright out. However, they were so high up in the sky that it may have been nearing night at the base of the tree. "Please, go and rest. You need the rest. I will inquire with the archers of the settlement to see if they will spare some supplies." Drake smiled slightly at the Oracle before nodding and heading towards the inn.

Hopefully his clothes would be clean in the morning. The robe was comfortable and all for the desert, but he really felt more comfortable in his own clothing.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Kittypoptart: Eww... ~dashes out of the room~

Dreylen: I told her she didn't want to show up in this chapter...~shudders~ Guh, I forgot about how I had managed to describe the Zuu attack. So gross.

Kittypoptart: ~staggers back in, holding smelly garbage can~ Urg...Why?

Dreylen: That's what I'm wondering right now. Take that thing out of here, please. I have to deal with cat litter on a daily basis, I don't want to smell that.

Kittypoptart: ~staggers back out of the room~

Dreylen: Reveiws would be very pleasant!


	3. Birds of a Feather

**Authoress' note:** I sincerely apologize for taking SO FREAKING LONG to post this chapter! My computer overheated and crashed, and it took obscenely long just to get my mom and dad to find someone to get the data off. I will do my best to keep a fairly regular schedule of posting, but I'm afraid I can't make any promises.

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Final Fantasy franchise, the legend told in this story, or anything else you can recognize from things other than this story.

**Without any further delay, please enjoy chapter three.**

Chapter 3: Birds of a Feather

Drake groaned slightly as he woke up, and looked around. The room was decidedly cleaner than anywhere that they'd stopped in the past several days, and there was no nervous buzz of energy that came from people being wary. The air felt amazingly clean, and the walls were a bright brown from the wood.

"Sir Drake...?" The archer blinked as he heard his name getting called, and stood, stretching his arms over his head before going to see who was calling him. The oracle from the day before was standing at the base of the steps. "Ah, there you are. I've good news." The archer blinked as he walked down the steps, turning slightly so that he was trotting down the steps sideways. "The archers I've spoken to would be willing to give you supplies for arrows, so long as you speak with them and teach them a bit."

Drake's eyebrows went up. He really didn't know what exactly these archers would want him to teach them. He shrugged, though, and blink as his eyes drifted to a familiar pair of Cleyran kids. He smirked as he recognized them, and they shuffled a little, looking anywhere but at him. They were holding his now clean clothing. Whoever had cleaned the leather was really good at it, because it didn't look mottled anymore. The clothing was shoved at him, and he accepted it with a smile.

"Thank you. I doubt I would have managed to clean these myself." The two Cleyrans nodded a little nervously and darted off. The archer chuckled a little and looked back to the oracle. "I'll meet with the local archers after I've dressed. Where should I go to meet them?"

"There is a gazebo overlooking the sandstorm. That is where the archers have a tendency to gather. Follow the bridges to the left as you face out of the inn, and you'll find it at the very end." Drake nodded, and headed up the stairs to the privacy screens.

The slightly ragged shirt that Drake wore under his vest showed an odd set of color variations that made him raise his eyebrow, but he put it on anyway, and then looked at his vest. That seemed to have been cleaned better, as there wasn't any discoloration from the archer's sleeve that he had been wearing. He folded it up and then pulled out his old vest from his enchanted pouch, and smiled as he saw it was just as clean as it was when he put it on. That was pulled on as he continued to sift through his clothing. The archer's sleeve itself was hidden amongst his clothes, and as soon as he saw it, he understood why.

That article of clothing had taken the most damage. The fabric was threadbare, on all three pieces, but it was most noticeable on the chest guard. The wrist guard was also pretty bad off, bad enough that Drake decided to pitch it, but the longest piece, the part that covered most of his arm, was in okay condition. He pulled that on and pulled on his pants, noticing that those would have to be replaced sometime. His boots were still fairly good, which he was grateful for, as he'd been walking around in bare feet the day before.

The archer laced up his vest and pulled on his boots before lacing those up as well. Next on was his glove, and his yellow sash was tied around his waist, his green sash and his battle vest getting tucked into his enchanted pouch. That was put on the belt under his sash, and his bow and empty quivers were slung on.

The archer clumped down the steps, lifting a hand to wave to the innkeeper, and trotted past the Burmecian soldier Dan. The man looked up from his wares, and waved, recognizing the human from when he was escaping Burmecia.

"Ah, you're alright! I saw your friends, but didn't see you, yesterday! How are you?" Drake paused where he was, and walked back a bit to stand at a comfortable talking distance from the soldier.

"Feeling better than I have for a few days. I got hurt pretty badly when I was in Burmecia." Drake waved his hand a little to show that he was over that a bit, and stretched his arms out. "Not to mention going from a wet area to a hot, dry one isn't good for avoiding colds and the like." Dan chuckled, and Drake smiled as well.

"Aye, that's true enough! Many of the soldiers are sick with the sniffles. I'm wondering how you managed to get through that war zone without getting seriously hurt." A wry, slightly haunted smile crossed Drake's face for a moment.

"I'm not hurt, physically, but I wish I could say the same for my mind. I'm no soldier, and this is my first war. I doubt that Alexandria will leave it at this." Dan pursed his mouth along his muzzle, looking down at his callused hands.

"That's likely, yeah. The Cleyrans all hold a lot of trust in their sandstorm. Say that they can control its strength. I dunno about it, though. I've been told that the ritual is gonna be held later this week, though." Drake blinked. Well, at least he had a mental timeline of when things were going to go down.

"I don't think a sandstorm will stop those mages, to be honest." Drake kept his voice rather low, like Dan had, as it seemed like most of the soldiers did. The Cleyrans generally had louder voices, and wider movements. However, Cleyra itself was a wider, more open place than Burmecia was. Slightly raised voices and wider gestures were to be expected here.

"Yeah, it doesn't seem like much stops those demons." Drake smirked, a slightly feral look in his eyes. He flipped his bow around a little, his fingers never fully loosening their grip.

"Oh, I've found a few things that stop them. Arrows, for one." Dan smirked, as coldly as Drake had. It was the smile of someone who was speaking of death, who had seen death, who had dealt death.

"Aye, I suppose so, if you managed to get through Burmecia, you must have found out some way to stop them. Here." Drake blinked as Dan started to dig through his things. "This is usually used by the Dragon Knight apprentices, but I think you might be able to make use of this." Drake accepted the leather greave, and looked it over, holding it in only one hand.

"I think I can, yeah. It'd be a bad idea for me to get hit in the leg that holds most of my weight when I shoot, huh?" The soldier grinned at the archer, and held the human's weapons as the archer attached the greave onto his belt. "My thanks. I guess I do have a lack of armor." Dan laughed, and passed the quivers and bow back.

"Many archers do. You've got someplace to go, though, right? Go on, then. Don't let me hold you up." Drake smiled and lifted a hand to wave as he trotted off, hoping that the path to the gazebo was as easy as the oracle had said it was.

As Drake walked along, he noticed several dancers trailing him. He pretended to not notice them, hoping that it would make them stop following him. It didn't work. He remembered Zidane mentioning that Drake was a magnet for women, but he really hadn't thought that it was actually true. Did he do this in Lindblum, too? Or were all the women just used to him being oblivious?

After a while, Drake finally reached the area that he had been looking for, and his eyes lit up a bit as he saw the four archers standing there and talking. One of them noticed him arriving, and called out to him, lifting a hand to wave a hello. The others soon turned to look as well.

"You're the Chosen from Lindblum?" Drake blinked at the title he seemed to have gotten, and nodded a bit.

"Call me Drake, though. Most everyone does." The Cleyran archers nodded in agreement, and walked a short distance to where they had benches set up for their fletching. They all looked to be well used, which Drake was interested to see.

"You look like you're in need of arrows. Come, work with us and talk. We wish to hear of what you've been through, hear, what you've learned." Drake chuckled a little as he sat down at the bench that had been motioned as to be for his use. He pulled off the enchanted pouch, and pulled a few feathers out, grabbing the knife set on the bench to start cutting them into shape.

Zidane grumbled a little as he walked along the bridges of Cleyra, almost completely turned around. He heard a familiar, slightly booming laugh, and followed the sound, to find the man he had started to call his brother sitting on a workbench with several arrows drying in front of him. He was gesturing with the small knife he held, obviously telling a story to the other archers near him.

"Hey Drake!" The archers all paused, and the lone human turned to look at the thief, and raised a hand to wave. The thief trotted along the last bridge to where his friend was, and nodded respectfully to the Cleyran archers, who kept working at their arrows. "You feeling any better, man?" The human archer tilted his head to the side, glancing towards the sandstorm. At least he was being honest.

"Still kinda trying to get used to not having to constantly be on edge. Odd what a week of fighting can do, isn't it?" Zidane winced at the half-hearted smile that Drake offered. It wasn't nearly as strong as the one he had been shown to the other archers.

"Yeah. Going back to normal the first time is always the hardest. Hey, have you seen Quina? I haven't seen him...her...whatever gender that Qu is, since we arrived." Drake blinked, and tilted his head to the side. He _did_ know where Quina likely was, but he didn't know if s/he was there yet.

"Nope. I've got no idea where Quina is. What about Vivi? I'm a bit worried about him." Drake knew that Zidane had already found the little black mage when the thief winced and looked away.

"Freya's taken him to hand. Some Burmecians mistook him for an Alexandrian mage, so she's making sure no one else tries to hurt him." Drake nodded, relieved. "I'm guessing you're gonna be hanging out with these guys for a while?"

A genuine smile crossed Drake's face for a moment, making the thief smile in response, glad to see that his friend truly was recovering, though slowly. The monkey-tailed man took that as the answer, and nodded, lifting a hand as he turned and went back to his search.

"So, Drake. You said that you used a technique against those Alexandrian soldiers in Burmecia that made them collapse?" Drake gave a thin smile as he chose the shaft of his next arrow, sighting down it with one eye.

"Yeah. I discovered these techniques that I can mix with arrows. I think it uses mana." The Cleyrans all made slightly surprised sounds. "I dunno exactly how I managed to figure out how to do it. It relies a lot on meditation, though." The human archer used the small knife he held to cut a small notch in one end of the piece of wood destined to become an arrow shaft.

"Meditation? Like...what the clerics do?" Drake nodded as he pulled out another pigeon feather and carefully cut it down the shaft. "Why? We can aim just as well without blanking our minds." Drake sighed a little as he set down the feathers, and rested his elbow on a knee.

"It's easier to do so, though. Without blanking your mind, you're distracted by things. As you sight down the arrow, if you have allies near your target, you worry about hitting them. If the target is far away, you think about whether or not you can hit it. If you blank your mind, these thoughts go away. You're able to focus on the target, and nothing else. Yes, I keep in mind when my friends are near to my target. I keep an eye on their movements, so I don't accidentally shoot them. But my mind stays clear." The human pointed his knife towards the others, an earnest look on his face.

"Also, I've noticed that when I blank my mind as I shoot, I'm not as emotionally affected by my kills. If Cleyra is attacked, you might be called in to fight. Fighting a soldier isn't the same as hunting. You see their eyes, and their thoughts as they die." The archers were watching Drake earnestly now, seeing the shadows that were still entirely present in his eyes. "When I first killed another thinking being...what tormented me the most was the thought that the person I had killed had a life ahead of them, goals, plans...and my arrow ended it all." The Cleyran archers were now quite serious, seeing all of Drake's regrets on his actions.

"When I reached Burmecia, I was still tortured by that. But I was still able to meditate, and clear my mind. And I was able to keep fighting, because I had a cause." Drake looked down to his task again, reaching for the Zuu saliva glue and twine. "If Alexandria attacks Cleyra, we all will have cause to take lives. I don't want to see you guys as crippled by it as I was." Silence reigned over the pavilion, broken only by the soft whistling of the sandstorm.

"I guess...the world outside of Cleyra is a lot tougher than we thought. There's a lot that we don't know. Compared to us..." Drake shook his head, cutting off the archer that was speaking as his fingers deftly wrapped the twine around the feathers and shaft.

"I may seem to know a lot, but really, there's a _lot_ that I don't know. How it is that I managed to figure out these techniques of mine, why I can't remember my past...exactly where I'm from, any of that. The more I learn, the more I find I don't know." The newly created arrow was set with the others to dry as a shout came from below.

All the archers looked towards the sound as a puff of sand was shot into the air. The Cleyrans all gasped, but Drake honestly could say that he didn't know what it was. One of the archers stood, though, a decidedly concerned look on his face.

"That came from the Antlion's den!" Now Drake was a bit concerned. He'd heard rumors of ferocious desert creatures called Antlions even when he was living in Lindblum, which had fascinated him a bit, so he knew as much as any person outside of Cleyra did.

"The Antlion's been hibernating for a few weeks, though. The oracles made it go to sleep." Drake glanced at the archers before looking back towards where the Antlion's den was before sitting down with a slight sigh.

"I've got the feeling that either Zidane or Quina were behind that shout. But if you say that the Antlion is asleep, I'll believe you. They can handle themselves." The others glanced at Drake, who was selecting another arrow shaft. He already had a single quiver's worth of arrows drying, but he had three quivers.

"Alright, if you say so, man..." Drake couldn't help but smile as the other archers got back to making their own arrows. It was sunset by the time they were all done.

Drake waved to the other archers, promising to teach them some basic skills in the morning, and wandered his way back to the inn, yawning as he shouldered his now-full quivers.

Zidane was in the common room of the inn when Drake walked in, and smiled at his friend, the worry quickly disappearing from his eyes. The archer gave him a slight smile, not forcing himself to do so.

"You look...a bit sandy." The thief blushed a little, and reached a gloved hand up to brush sand out of his hair. Drake couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Quina got hungry and jumped into a sand pit." Drake grinned a little. Now he knew for sure that he was right. "We fell a pretty decent ways down. Found this, though." Drake lifted an eyebrow as his 'brother' dug a silk robe out of his belt pouch.

"How on earth did you manage to get that to fit in your belt pouch?" Zidane couldn't help but chuckle at Drake's reaction. "Nevermind, it's probably one of those thief skills that I turned down." Zidane had an odd look come onto his face at how quickly Drake dismissed it.

"Yeah, something like that. You done with all your arrows?" The archer glanced over his shoulder at the quivers he was holding, and then sent a smirk towards his thief friend.

"Yeah. I'm still gonna be going out and hanging out with those guys tomorrow, though. I promised them that I'd teach them a few things." Drake chuckled and shook his head. "I still find it odd that I have people looking up to me. But I guess the fact that I've had actual battle experience makes up for how long I've been shooting arrows." Zidane had a slight smile on his face, but it wasn't as cheerful as it normally was.

"Well, at least you're the least likely to get bored. I'm probably gonna be running around keeping Quina out of trouble until the Alexandrians arrive." Drake's smile became thin, worry showing in his eyes.

The invasion really did worry him. Ever since he'd arrived, he'd noticed just how different from the game Cleyra was. He honestly didn't think he could stand by to watch it get blown up. Certainly not now that he also knew that the tree was home to the dryad as well. He was going to have to think of a way to keep Odin from destroying it.

"Drake?" The archer blinked out of his thoughts as he felt a hand on his arm. Zidane looked up into his face, looking a bit worried. "You spaced out again. You alright?" The archer pasted a smile onto his face and ran his fingers through his rather shaggy hair.

"Just thinking. If Alexandria is really gonna invade, shouldn't there be a plan already to protect the settlement? Even some of the natives are cynical that the sandstorm will protect them." Zidane's eyes dropped to the ground for a moment, and he crossed his arms.

"Yeah...there should be. But really, other than us and the Burmecian soldiers, there's no one here that has any battle experience. I don't think they'll be pleased with us commanding them around." Drake shook his head a little, formations and tactics whirling around in his head.

"No, but...Really, if you think about it, it's better to be alive and allow a few people to do what they do best than to be dead and have not. However, the decision is up to them, not us." Drake ruffled his hair and the two of them started to head up the stairs to the rooms, with Drake yawning a bit. "Gods, I swear I'm still exhausted." Zidane chuckled a little at Drake's complaining.

"Well, you've still been moving around even though you were told to relax by that moogle." Drake rolled his eyes, and yawned again, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Not really that easy to relax when you've been traveling. I've really been finding it hard to cool down. Not to mention, I got _eaten_ by a _big freaking bird!_" That really got Zidane laughing, and a few people yelled at him for it, poking their heads out of their rooms.

"Sorry, sorry!" Both of the men made placating gestures at the other guests at the inn, who all grumbled and went back into their rooms. "You're never gonna let us forget that, are you?" Drake shook his head, grinning. Surprisingly, it was just as wide and honest as the ones he'd given his brother while they were in Lindblum. Zidane simply shook his head as he followed the archer into the room the travelers were all sharing.

Drake stretched his right arm out as he walked along the skyway bridges to the gazebo. He had one of his quivers and his bow slung over his shoulder, and was feeling much better than he had since leaving Lindblum.

"Drake! Hey!" The Cleyran archers greeted their new friend, framed against the sandstorm and the sunrise above it. "We were starting to wonder if you'd get up anytime soon."

"Sorry. I'm used to a lower climate. Where morning doesn't come quite as quickly." The Cleyrans chuckled, and started to walk. Drake walked along with them, wondering a little bit where they were leading him.

"Heh. Yeah, I guess that the further down you go, the later it gets light. Anyway, we wanna show you our shooting range. There're a few kids that have been showing an interest in archer since you showed up." Drake scoffed a little and started to shake his head.

"Hey, a Chosen is always big news. You're the first to have visited Cleyra in ages. Lots of kids are really influenced by visitors, when they happen. And you're the one with the most charisma of all the visitors." Drake tilted his head to the side as they all filed along a rope bridge.

"Iunno. Zidane has a lot of charisma. I just seem to attract attention." The archers all chuckled and glanced back. Drake blinked, as he was in the middle of the group, and did the same, just in time to see a few dancers duck behind hiding places. "...I kid you not, that happens in Lindblum, too. I have no idea why." The archers all laughed.

"Exactly why the kids like ya, too. You've got a sort of foreign charm to you." Drake blinked at that wording. Foreign? Could people _tell_ that he wasn't from Gaia, and just didn't care? Or maybe...

"And here it is! Center of the canopy so that we don't have to deal with the wind as much, but out of the way of all the houses so that no one can get hurt." Drake blinked out of his thoughts as one of the archers announced that they had arrived at their destination, and looked around. "Oi! Kiddos! Outta the way."

A lot of Cleyran and Burmecian kids were gathered around the shooting range, and Drake couldn't help but smile a little about it. A lot of them gaped at him as he pulled his strung bow off of his back and tightened the string. They gathered near the bridge and climbed up on top of each other in order to watch.

The circular target that was set up about fifty paces away was painted in a familiar bulls-eye pattern, which made Drake smile. Seemed that things never changed, no matter where you were. The other archers were stringing their bows, and one gestured that he was free to start shooting.

Time almost seemed to slow for a moment as Drake stared at the target, his fingers closing over the fletching of an arrow. The fingers of his left hand squeezed the reliable wood of his bow, lifting it in time with the arrow sliding out of the quiver, the notch in the butt of the arrow meeting the string, bouncing there for a moment before finally pulling back. The bow creaked softly as the string gently scraped across Drake's cheek, coming to rest just in front of his ear. A couple of deep breaths, and the arrow was released. To Drake, it seemed to float there for a moment before the string reacted to physics, propelling the arrow forwards as his arms remained where he had pulled them to.

As the archer watched, the arrow swayed from side to side as it wiggled its way to the target. The shaft reached the concentric circles, and started to nudge its way into the straw and twig circle. As Drake blinked, he realized that it wasn't so much that his shooting was slow as he was registering what was going on that much faster.

"Wooooow..." Drake turned his head to look at the kids, smiling slightly as he noticed they were all gaping at him with astonishment. He allowed his arms to drop, and looked at the other archers, who were also gaping at him. He lifted an eyebrow at them as one of them went and got the arrow he had shot.

"I don't think I've ever seen someone shoot that fast or that accurate. How did you manage to do it?" The Cleyran that was walking back to where Drake was looked over the arrow, taking a closer look at Drake's craftsmanship.

"Didn't seem so fast to me. When you clear your mind, there's more that you can see. Time seems to slow down. Your reactions can increase in speed. You have more time to make a decision about a target." The Cleyrans looked like they were starting to understand what Drake had been talking about the day before.

"So that's why you were telling us about it." The Cleyran offered the arrow back to Drake, who slid it back into his quiver. "Can't say I've ever actually really tried it, though. Care to teach us?" Drake smirked a little and pulled his quiver off, gesturing for the archers and the kids alike to gather around.

"'Course. I did say that I'd teach you some stuff in return for giving me things I needed for my arrows." The kids all cheered, covering the cheers of the archers, and gathered around the human as he sat on the ground, his quiver and bow being set to the side.

Zidane grumbled as he wandered the rope bridges looking for Drake. He'd been talking with one of the oracles, trying to get them to agree to let them set up some defenses. He was really surprised by how much talking it had taken, but they had finally agreed. And now the thief had no idea what would be the best idea to do. He never really paid attention to the actions of soldiers, but Drake had always done so.

The monkey-tailed man paused on a bridge and tugged on his hair, groaning slightly in frustration. He had thought that Drake would be at the gazebo like he had yesterday, but there wasn't anyone there. A bit of giggling made the thief looked in that direction, and he blinked as he saw a group of dancers gathered around a tree, peering at something beyond it.

As the frustrated thief headed across the bridges, he spotted a larger group that the dancers were watching. There were a lot of kids there, and a few adults. However, there was a human in the middle, talking as he gestured slightly, his face as relaxed as he had ever been. Zidane blinked at Drake as he seemed to be telling stories that were sobering all of his audience. As he approached, he heard exactly what Drake was saying, and understood. He was telling them about his reaction to his first battle against humans.

Drake paused in his story as he spotted Zidane, standing at the end of a bridge with his thumbs tucked under his belt as he looked at them. His audience noticed, and looked in the direction the storyteller was, and a couple of kids fidgeted slightly. Drake noticed and ruffled the hair of a few that he could reach, earning surprised squeaks as those children put their hair back to rights.

"I was wondering where you disappeared to. Harder to find you than to find Quina." Drake simply smirked. His eyes flicked over to the dancers, who tittered and hid again. Zidane looked over in that direction as well, and lifted an eyebrow. "What is it about you that gets the attention of pretty much all the women in town?" Drake shook his head with a bemused smile.

"I dunno, really. I notice sometimes, but I don't other times. It confuses the heck outta me." The archers all chuckled, and the kids all blinked innocently. "Hey, I think you lot need to go and find your parents. Not too sure if they really want you hanging out with me." The kids groaned their disappointment, but obediently got up and scampered off.

"You're dang good with kids." Drake chuckled as he stood, stretching his arms over his head. "You'd make a good dad." That comment made Drake sputter, his eyes widening momentarily. That reaction made everyone around burst out laughing, and the human archer shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

"Maybe, but I'm not planning on having kids anytime soon. There's way too much going on right now." Zidane smiled a little as he saw the embarrassment on his face. The archers all laughed and made a bit of fun about Drake, who only got more embarrassed, even though they really didn't know about Drake's search for a woman from his past.

"Anyway. Drake, we finally got the go-ahead to start organizing a defense for the town." The archers all perked up, paying attention to the thief. "I've got no ideas, and Freya is busy elsewhere, and I know you normally have at least a few." Drake crossed his arms and tapped his chin, lifting his eyes up to where the leaves met the sky.

"Hm..." Drake's eyes closed for a moment, something that Zidane knew was him thinking fairly hard. "With how few actual fighters are here, we'll need traps and at least one ambush. You and Freya will be in charge of those, and some of the Burmecians that Freya thinks are trustworthy enough. We'll have to keep some in reserve here, and us archers will stay here as well, along with Vivi, so that we can pick off the enemy at a safe distance. Quina...I think should stay here as well." Zidane's eyebrows went up at the plan that Drake had set forth.

"What about us?" Drake blinked as he looked to the dancers, who had edged closer to him. "We may not be able to really help fight, but we can support the soldiers with the magic we can cast." Drake groaned slightly and closed his eyes, lifting a hand to rub at his head as he thought.

"What kinds of magic do you know?" The dancers all looked to each other, and one of them stepped forwards a bit, apparently acting as a sort of spokeswoman.

"We can heal those around us who are feeling weakened, and the strongest of us can heal as well. When we dance before the enemy, we can affect them adversely." Drake hummed a little as he thought, a finger tapping on his forehead. Everyone was waiting for his reaction, and Zidane abruptly wondered why they were really asking him. Sure, he was a Chosen, but really, he was a newcomer to battle.

"The most talented should go with the ambush group, and support them. The best at supporting dances be with the ranged fighters, to boost them, and a few more with the reserves. The rest are their own group to go about and help where they can. You'll have to be careful to avoid danger." They all nodded, glad that they were included in protecting their home.

"Drake!" They all turned to look at who had called the archer's voice, and they saw Freya striding along the skyways towards them. The archer moved a bit towards her, and she looked at Zidane, who nodded. "I see that Zidane already told you that the oracles are allowing us to defend Cleyra." Drake nodded this time, wondering what she was getting at.

"You having a hard time thinking up tactics as well?" Freya seemed to blush at Zidane's question, but didn't refute it. The thief grinned and nodded towards Drake, who merely blinked. "Drake took about five seconds to think up a decent tactic." Freya blinked, her eyes widening a moment.

"It seems that the legend that Chosen are excellent tacticians is true. What have you thought up?" Drake took a moment to fill in the Dragon Knight on his idea, who closed her eyes a moment, assessing it. "Yes, that ought to work. I wish that we had more forces than we have, but we must make do with what we have. We will have to run some drills, and find a place for the ambush. Who knows when Alexandria will invade." All present nodded, and the dancers were milling about in their own group, trying to sort out their own ranks.

"Freya...where is Vivi?" The Dragon Knight paused and looked behind her, where a familiar straw hat was wobbling its way across the bridges. "Okay, good. I've been worrying about him a bit." Drake rubbed his head as he looked at his archer friends, who were starting to realize that what had just been decided was real. They all were looking a bit nervous.

"We'll all need to work a bit. These guys are gonna need some getting used to the idea of actually fighting instead of just hunting." Drake kept his voice a bit low in respect for the Cleyrans. "I know the Burmecians are gonna be more used to this, but that's not going to be enough." The others nodded as Vivi arrived.

"I'll go inform the Burmecians and start some drills." Freya moved off as Vivi looked between her and the rest of the group.

"Vivi, could you stay here a bit? We're gonna be working with these guys when Alexandria invades." The little black mage nodded, though he seemed a little nervous still.

"I'll go and search out a place decent enough for an ambush. I'll take Quina with me, keep him/her out of trouble." Drake nodded as the monkey-tailed man moved off. Vivi looked after him before moving to Drake's side and grabbing hold of the end of his yellow sash. The archer paused and looked down at him before kneeling.

"Hey. You alright?" The black mage fiddled with his hands before mumbling something. "Mm? Oh, you're feeling a bit uneasy here, huh? Well, don't worry too much. I'm here. I'll keep people from picking on you." Vivi looked up at Drake's face before nodding and letting go of his sash.

"O-okay..." The two of them walked to the shooting range, where Drake caught his bow and quiver. The other archers seemed to be trying what Drake had described to them, their eyes focused solely on the targets set in front of them. Actually, that reminded him of something.

"Hey Vivi...When you're in battle, what do you see?" The little black mage blinked up at Drake as he simply stared at the target. The other archers were sort of spacing out, but Drake knew that they would hear him.

"I-I see all the people in front of me." Drake's lips pursed a little bit. Looked like he really did need to recite this legend. He just had to think about how to modify it so that it would make sense. Or maybe...he wouldn't have to.

"There's a legend that I remember. There was a man who prided himself on his archery. Many people came to him to learn from him. Many let their egos get to them, and started to argue on who was the better shot.

"In order to keep them from arguing further, he offered them a contest of sorts. He set a clay bird in a tree on the edge of a large meadow, and brought his students to the other side of the meadow.

"'Shoot the bird', he told them. The first stepped forwards, preparing to shoot." One of the Cleyran archers pulled his arrow back to his cheek, sighting down the shaft. "The master stopped him before he released the arrow. 'What do you see?'

"'I see the forest,' the student replied, and released." The Cleyran's arrow left his bow. "His arrow fell short." The Cleyran's arrow got stuck at the very edge of the target.

"The second student stepped forwards, taking aim." A second Cleyran was aiming. "'What do you see?'

"'I see the tree the bird is in.' The second student's arrow hit the tree." The second Cleyran's arrow hit within the first circle, counting from the outside.

"The third student stepped forwards, drawing his bow. Like the others, he was told to wait by his teacher. Also like the others, he was asked what he saw. 'I see the bird in the tree,' he answered, and loosed." Another Cleyran shot an arrow. It hit one more circle into the target than the other. "His arrow grazed the clay bird, shaking it in its perch. But it did not fall, and did not break.

"The fourth eldest student stepped forwards. 'What do you see?' This student waited a moment before answering, 'I see the wing of the bird.' He released his arrow." The fourth Cleyran archer released his arrow, hitting the ring on the target just outside of the center. "His arrow struck the bird on the wing, chipping it, but it did not break.

"Again and again, the students stepped forwards. Again and again, they were asked what they saw. Again and again, one by one, they missed. They proceeded from the most senior, until the youngest stepped forwards. The eldest students all claimed that his attempt would be as fruitless as theirs. 'Enough,' said their mentor. 'Let the boy attempt, as you have.' The boy, barely taller than you, Vivi, drew back his bow, sighting down the arrow. 'What do you see,' the master asked his youngest student.

"'I see the bird's eye,' he replied. The master paused at this response." Drake nocked an arrow to his bowstring, and started to pull it back to his cheek, his eyes not really focusing on the target.

"'Do you see anything else?' The boy paused for a moment.

"'No. There is nothing but the eye of the clay bird.' And the boy released his arrow. The students and their master walked across the large meadow to see the boy's result. The bird no longer sat in the tree that it had been set on. It lay on the ground, with an arrow embedded into the eye that had been." Drake's fingers released his arrow, and it struck the center of the target.

"The students all clamored. How had a child managed to do what they, grown men, could not? The master simply chuckled. He knelt down next to the boy and asked him what his name was. The boy answered simply: 'Yoichi'." Drake looked to the others, who were all watching him. "Do you understand? The farther your target, the more you have to block out the world around you. The closer, the safer for your allies."

Vivi's glowing yellow eyes were wide and bright. Drake knew that he had inspired the boy with his story as well. The other archers were looking at him respectfully. He couldn't tell if they'd heard that legend before or not.

He had heard the legend from Cassandra, who had always had an ear for old legends. Even she didn't know which Asian country the legend had come from, but he was betting on either Japan or China. Both sounded rather likely. He had to admit, though, it was an amazing story.

"I've heard that legend before, but never with such detail. I see now that the legend that has been passed down to me has lost much of its impact, whereas the one you have inherited retains it." Drake merely smiled slightly. He looked to the lone target, and smiled slightly as he saw the line the arrows had made.

"It does, doesn't it? That legend...was part of why I had such an interest in archery. That a person can see something so small so clearly from so far away...I didn't believe it was possible at first, but now...I can do so myself. It's a matter of training oneself." One of the Cleyrans went and got their arrows, returning each to their respective owners.

"A question, Drake." The human paused in looking over the arrow, looking at the Cleyran that had spoken. "When you shoot, do you purposefully aim?" The man smiled slightly and looked down at the arrow again.

"No. I feel it. It's strange to say, but it's the truth. It's as if the arrow itself has become a part of my body, and tells me when it's aimed correctly. Even if I make a long shot and have to adjust for the wind and gravity, I feel it." Vivi blinked, still standing by Drake's side and looking up at him.

"Th-that sounds a lot like how I use my magic. I can't really concentrate on where I'm aiming, and once the spell's in the air, I can't change its course." Drake looked down at the black mage with a slightly surprised look on his face.

"I didn't know that you couldn't control that." Vivi nodded, his hat flopping about. "I wonder if it's because we both have mana...Even though I don't have much." The Cleyran archers blinked at Drake.

"Y-you have mana?" The two travelers looked at the natives of the city. Drake had a slight smile on his face, and Vivi was looking innocently at them.

"Yeah. It's why I was still so exhausted yesterday. To be honest, I'm still not feeling entirely up to par, but I should in a couple of days. I used a lot of my mana while in Burmecia." The archers all winced at the mention of the rainy city. "Add into that the fact that I was far from feeling normal anyway, and getting separated from the rest of the group, that...was a pretty stressful couple of days." Drake scratched the back of his head, remembering that he was going to have to survive for a while longer. No matter how scared he was, he couldn't back out anymore.

The Alexandrian soldiers that had seen him working with Zidane and the others would be able to pick him out when their kingdom invaded Lindblum, and he couldn't go to Treno, either, because that was regularly visited by Alexandrians. He had to keep moving, had to keep going with Zidane and the others. If he didn't...well, those women soldiers weren't likely to be terribly friendly, no matter the fact that he seemed to attract women no matter where he went. Actually, that magnetic personality or whatever did the attracting would be a really bad thing in Alexandria with his reputation there. He would likely be caught quickly.

Drake shook his head to get himself out of his thoughts as he heard the thunk of an arrow hitting the target, and looked. The Cleyrans were practicing now, and he was pretty sure that they were doing a mixture of what he had taught them. He moved over to the side and sat down with Vivi, deciding that he could ask questions of the little mage, so that he could figure out what exactly he was doing.

A call interrupted the activities of six people, who looked towards the one that was running along the bridge. The Cleyran whose name had been yelled blinked back at the man who had called him.

"Croix! What's this I hear about you taking part in a battle?" The Cleyran groaned, setting his string hand on his snout and closing his eyes. Drake couldn't help but tilt his head to the side, a little confused.

"Jiece, you know that I can't stand to the side when something needs doing. We can't solve the issue with diplomacy, no matter how we want to. They attacked Burmecia with no provocation or warning." The other archers were looking away from the pair while looking rather awkward.

"How do you know? We haven't even tried yet!" Drake pursed his lips slightly as he kept his eyes on his hands as he carefully wrapped colored thread around the base of the fletching. He was going to use them to send messages to people.

"Because of how they're acting! You always insist on believing that people will listen if you simply talk, but that isn't true! We've been raised a certain way, and they've been raised another!" Drake paused in wrapping thread with a slight sigh.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but Croix is right." All eyes were on Drake. "The Alexandrians believe that they are superior to all others. While in Burmecia, I overheard the queen herself call Burmecians 'filthy rats'." Anger lighted in the eyes of the Cleyrans, and Drake lifted one of his hands to make them pause. "I do _not_ share this view. After all, I've been traveling with, and saved by, Freya Crescent. I have nothing but respect for the Burmecians.

"Considering that they were taken by surprise, the Burmecians did very well in defending themselves. From what I saw, they were overpowered and outmaneuvered, taken completely by surprise. Cleyra has been warned already. There are defenses already going into place." The Cleyrans were calming down, watching as Drake spoke. Jiece even was letting his anger go, but there was still some in place.

"And who are you to tell this to us?" Drake closed his eyes, resisting the urge to get angry. He was doing his best to be diplomatic.

"I traveled to Burmecia, along with Vivi here, Zidane, and Freya as soon as we heard that it had been attacked. Keep in mind that I had never been in a war before, and was greatly affected by my first kill. I knew that I would change by the time I got there, but I came anyway." The Cleyran Jiece looked at Drake with a different look in his eyes. "Out of all the people in the group that's come to help, I'm the only human. Vivi isn't, Quina definitely isn't, and neither is Zidane. I'm just like them. I just want to help in whatever way I can."

Silence reigned on the platform for a moment, with all the Cleyrans looking at the lone human in their midst. One by one, they looked away, and Drake went back to wrapping the green thread around the shaft of the arrow.

"I see. I apologize. I was out of line." Drake looked up with a kind smile on his face, startling Jiece.

"You don't need to apologize. You didn't know just how much we've gone through to get here." Vivi looked from Drake to the Cleyrans and back, his eyes a bit wider than normal. Drake noticed out of the corner of his eye and flattened the black mage's hat with a slight chuckle.

"Gah..." Drake lifted his hand, still smiling as Vivi fixed his hat. "Why do you do that...?" Drake's smile brightened a little at Vivi's question.

"Truly? I'm not entirely sure. I just occasionally feel the urge to." The Cleyrans stared at Drake in confusion. Vivi simply huffed with a bit of irritation. Drake chuckled and tied off the thread before cutting it with his teeth and putting the arrow away before tilting his head back and rolling it from side to side, feeling and hearing some cracking noises from his muscles and bones. He noticed that the Cleyrans were all cringing, and lifted an eyebrow.

"That...can't be healthy." Drake threw his head back and laughed, startling everyone. They all stared at him as he laughed, and looked a bit worried as he calmed himself, wiping a few tears of laughter from his eyes.

"Sorry. But that's the reaction everyone has to that habit of mine. I've just completely forgotten how amusing it is to see someone's initial reaction." The Cleyrans continued to stare at him.

"Drake!" The archer turned to look, confused as to who was calling him. As far as he knew, all of his friends were off doing something that pertained to the defense of the town. He lifted an eyebrow at the oracle that was hurrying towards them. "Sir Drake!" All of the Cleyrans bowed to the oracle, who merely waved a hand at them, huffing and puffing, out of breath.

"What is it?" The oracle took a couple of deep breaths before straightening, fixing the mixture of veil and hat on her head and brushing her robes down.

"Is it true that you decided how Cleyra will be defended?" Drake blinked, and got a slightly odd look on his face, as if he was wondering how the oracle had managed to get that information.

"Ah...yes, I did." The oracle bowed slightly, making the archer visibly uncomfortable. "Please...don't do that." Drake ran his hand down his face, hiding his embarrassment for a moment.

"I see. I apologize. But please. I merely wish to let you know that if we are needed, we oracles are able to heal the wounded." Drake nodded, his mind already churning away at the addition to his tactics.

"And you are able to do so anywhere?" A soft sound of assent came from the oracle, along with a nod, and Drake nodded as well.

"You will be with the dancers, moving to where you are needed. I wish I felt better about your ability to move about, because healing would be wonderful there." Drake lifted a hand and rubbed at his head, feeling a little bit of a headache coming.

"Understood. I will go and tell the other oracles." Drake watched with a rather bemused look on his face as he watched the oracle leave. He shook his head and sat down, rubbing at his head.

"Why are people looking to me for leadership now? I'm no leader..." No one heard Drake's words, as he was simply muttering them under his breath. "I've never been a leader. I've only ever been a follower." His hands left his head and he stared at them for a moment.

When he'd arrived in Lindblum two years ago, his hands were fairly soft. The only notable callus that he'd had had been from writing. Now, though, he had calluses on the first joint of the first three fingers on his string hand, and his bow hand, his left hand, had a callus much like that of a swordsman's from holding his bow. He had marks between his index finger and his thumb from all the times he'd been cut by the fletching of his arrows, making a sort of dark web of scars there.

Drake's hands, and eyes, closed. He had spent so much time wit his bow in hand that he now felt like something was missing when it wasn't there. At the same time, he felt lighter, as if something was missing from his back. After all, his quiver was lying on the ground a foot away. He'd gotten so accustomed to keeping his weapon on him. He'd become a warrior in such a short amount of time.

"Drake?" The archer blinked as he heard his name called, and lifted his eyes to look at Vivi. The fringe of his bangs almost blocked his sight. "Are you okay?" Drake turned his eyes back to his hands.

"I'm not sure. To be honest...I'm not sure I'm comfortable with people relying on me the way people are here. I've never been of any importance before." Vivi blinked as he looked at the archer, and sat down next to him.

"You know...When we were heading to Dali, Zidane was always worried about you and the rest of the troupe." Drake blinked. Was he really looking so messed up that the youngest of the group was starting to take pity on him? "He kept saying that he knew you could handle yourself, but he wasn't sure if you were ready for it, whatever that meant." Drake's eyes softened a bit. He certainly understood what it meant.

"He meant that my skills were good enough...but didn't know if my mind was ready for it. I...I'm more the sort to support other people. When I'm the one that's getting the most attention is when I falter." Drake lifted his eyes and watched the Cleyran archers. Jiece had even picked up a bow and was showing that he was actually rather decent at it. His words had changed the mind of someone. "I tend to be a follower more than a leader. I have great ideas, yeah, but..." Drake shook his head.

"Drake! Come on, show Jiece your skills!" Drake pasted a small smile on his face and stood, grabbing his quiver and bow. He idly flipped his bow over his hand as he stepped to the shooting range, and pulled an arrow out of the quiver.

The arrow sort of spun around Drake's fingers for a moment as the human gazed down the arrow-strewn path to the target, before moving both arms to nock the arrow on the bowstring.

Again, time seemed to slow down as Drake's arms moved up into position. He sighted down the arrow for what seemed to be only a moment to his slowed perception of time, but would seem less to those watching him. His fingers released, and the hesitation of the arrow made him smile internally. Like before, the arrow arced its way down the range to the target, and hit dead center.

The cheering of the Cleyrans that had seen this sort of thing before drowned out the words of disbelief coming from the one that hadn't. Drake slung his bow over his shoulder and smiled slightly at Vivi, who was smiling up at him. The human could tell quite a bit of the boy's facial expression just from his eyes.

"How! You simply drew it and shot!" Drake allowed a small smile to cross his face as he stretched his arms a bit.

"That's all I really need. I have a technique that allows me to see things as if they're moving slower." Jiece blinked, staring at Drake, bemused.

"He does the same thing you do, Jiece. He can clear his mind while still doing stuff." Drake lifted an eyebrow. So Jiece wasn't simply an archer.

"I thought only those suited for being an oracle could." Drake merely shrugged. At least he now knew what Jiece did. "I never tried to do it while shooting." Drake looked at the shooting range as Jiece pulled out an arrow.

The Cleyran's eyes almost seemed to glaze over as he moved smoothly. Like when Drake did so, the arrow nocked smoothly onto the string while the bow was raising up. The bow and arrow barely paused before the arrow was removed. The arrow, to the normal sight, flew straight and true, racing down the shooting range to embed itself next to Drake's arrow.

The Cleyrans all burst out cheering as Jiece continued to stare down the range at the arrows sitting side by side. Drake still had a smirk on his face, even though he was asking himself if that was what he looked like when he used that technique.

"I-I always thought..." Drake grinned. "It doesn't fly straight?" The human propped a hand on his hip as he looked down the range at the arrows.

"No. I was just as confused when I first saw it, as well. But every arrow moves like that. It's just so hard to see when you don't use a technique like that. And I think only an archer would notice it. Anyone else wouldn't have paid attention." Jiece turned to look at Drake, respect in his eyes. It was like they were in a brotherhood now.

"I see now. This is really one of the most basic techniques, though. Do you have any others?" Drake's smile increased. Jiece was definitely one of the best archers that he had met since leaving Lindblum. He could definitely learn the techniques that Drake had to offer.

**End Note:** Again, I'm so sorry it took so long to post. If it had bee up to me, I would have been done with this chapter many, many months ago.

The legend Drake tells in this story is one that I've heard somewhere, but I honestly can't tell where, or really what the name of the boy in the legend really is. I just gave him that name because of the bow in the game. I haven't been able to find any part of the legend anywhere, either.


	4. Whirlwind of Battle

Chapter 4: Whirlwind of Battle

**Authoress' Note:** I apologize for taking to long to update! As it is, I'm surprised that I managed to finish this in the middle of graduation season. Having a job in the grocery store has a very big problem with it comes to freetime.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that you recognize from elsewhere.

The music I listened to while writing this chapter was The B-52 by Bad Haggis

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Drake sighed a little as he looked at the swirling sand that he had become accustomed to seeing over the week. He had spent the past several days teaching Jiece and the other Cleyran archers all the techniques that he could in and around the drills that Freya had decided were necessary.

The drills, though necessary, annoyed Drake. Granted that it knocked the concept of the impending invasion into the heads of the Cleyrans, but it also interrupted the time needed to train them.

"Heeeeeelp!" Drake's attention was immediately directed to the Burmecian soldier that went charging up the stairs a few platforms away. He glanced at the Cleyrans, and Jiece made a shooing gesture towards the human.

"I'll keep them going. I'm further ahead of them, so I know what to tell them." Drake nodded and darted off, his bronze vest glinting in the sun. He had started to wear it again when the drills started a couple of days after arriving. His bow and quiver were always with him, though. He still refused to drop that habit.

"...is the matter?" Drake huffed a bit as he reached the inn, where the soldier had been headed. He glanced up and saw Zidane arriving as well, and lifted a hand to wave as he paid attention to the soldier.

"Th-the Antlion's mauling a kid!" Drake's eyes widened momentarily before remembering what kid it was. He had yet to meet Puck face-to-face, but he knew what he was like.

"The Antlion! It is usually so docile...how could-" Drake ignored the rest of what was said, heading down the steps towards where the Antlion's den was. He knew what the oracle was going to say and do, so there really wasn't any reason to stick around when the prince of Burmecia could have been in trouble.

Cleyrans and Burmecians alike quickly moved out of the way for the human as he tore along the stairs and bridges that linked each platform. More yells from behind him alerted him to Zidane and the Burmecian soldier's presence. They were also charging towards the Antlion's den.

Drake skidded to a stop as he saw the Antlion, spraying sand all over the little black mage that had decided to stick to the edges of the settlement. A high pitched keening sound made Drake frown slightly until it started to form into words. He heard Zidane arrive and his initial reaction, but his attention was settled firmly on the little Burmecian that was hooked onto the Antlion's limb.

"Aaaa! Help me!" Drake immediately pulled an arrow out of his quiver and nocked it, time slowing down so that he could see clearly when would be the best time to shoot.

The Antlion didn't move like it had in the game. It flailed around more, whipping Puck about like a ragdoll. Drake was normally able to see how an animal or person was about to move just by how the muscles contracted, but he wasn't able to see that on the Antlion.

_'Concentrate. Feel its movements.'_ Drake calmed his nerves, studying the Antlion's movements. Finally, he noticed a subtle pattern. _'There you go. Now, when would be the best time to rescue him?'_ The Antlion was about to throw the limb that held Puck the highest. That would be the best time and best place to get Puck free.

The limb that held the prince of Burmecia started to rise, the boy's body starting to show the effect of the movement. He was going to have to time it so that the arrow reached him at the exact moment he was the highest, to avoid hurting him. As soon as he figured that point out, he released the arrow, his heart jumping to his throat as he watched the projectile.

The arrow skimmed past Puck's hat, sending a ripple through the fabric before piercing the fabric that was caught on the Antlion's limb. The force freed the cloth and the hook made of Drake's mana caught onto the prince's clothing, carrying him with the arrow. The whole unit flew across the pit of sand, and the arrow embedded itself just above a hole spewing sand. Drake closed his eyes in relief, time returning to normal.

"Prince Puck!" Drake blinked. Freya must have arrived while he was concentrating. "Price Puck, are you alright?" A steady stream of expletives from the young Burmecian was the answer. Drake felt another rush of relief. The boy wasn't traumatized by this. "Drake, what were you thinking?" The human opened his eyes to look at Freya, who was releasing her fright and worry on the human.

"I was getting him out of danger." The archer's voice was steady, but his hands weren't. Both of his hands were shaking, and he held one up to show Freya. "You think that was easy?" The Dragon Knight blinked, her intended rant being broken by that information.

"H-how...?" Drake turned his attention to the Antlion, which was roaring in anger. "Nevermind, we don't have the time for that right now." Drake backed up a bit as the others headed towards the edge of the pit.

"Sorry guys, I'm still getting over how close that shot was." Zidane glanced back towards Drake, showing that he, at least, was listening. "That thing's shell is a bit too thick for me to really do much damage to, anyway." Zidane nodded and turned back to the Antlion.

Drake watched as Zidane jumped from the edge of the sandpit to land on the head of the Antlion. Freya and Quina were holding back one of the Antlion's legs that was trying to hit Vivi, whose eyes were closed. Drake knew he must have been trying to summon up a spell. The human's eyes slipped to the dangling form of the young Burmecian, staring at the four warriors taking on the giant bug.

Sand shifted underfoot as Drake started to edge along the sand pit, slinging his bow on his back. The Antlion noticed him, and swung a limb at him. The archer dove out of the way, getting closer to Puck and farther from the safety of his friends. He glanced back at them for a moment before darting out of the way of another attack. He knew, by the yells that Freya and Zidane were aiming at him, that they weren't able to back him up.

The young prince of Burmecia aimed a slightly suspicious and curious look at Drake as the human ducked behind a branch of wood to dodge another attack. The prince was still in range of the Antlion's attack, but he was no longer a point of interest. Neither should Drake have been, really, but it was taking a great deal of interest in him.

"Drake!" The archer turned his head and waved a hand from his hiding spot. "Stay put!" Drake caught his breath while he was safe, tilting his head back against the wood. He closed his eyes, trying to work out what exactly had happened when he was aiming to get Puck out of danger.

'That voice...Familiar, but...' Drake's string hand moved to his chest, his fingers slipping through the laces of his protective vest to pull out the flat metal feather that was his Stellazio. He looked at it for a moment, and then the answer to his question struck him. 'Maria...the Constellato of Lindblum.' Drake allowed his eyes to close again with a smirk.

He had placed the feather into his vest that day, having noticed before that when it was in his vest, he was better able to shoot exactly the way he wanted to. And, it seemed, it helped him to learn things on the fly. He needed Maria's help, though. He hadn't been concentrating enough.

Another thought came to Drake as he looked at the feather, though, feeling the wood shake with blows from the Antlion. He closed his fingers around it and slipped it into his enchanted pouch. A yell of surprise came from Zidane, and Drake risked glancing over his shoulder out of his hiding place. As he thought, the Antlion was turning to pay more attention to the ones that were actively attacking it.

"Oh, that's just...Thanks. Really, thanks." Drake shook his head as he grumbled to himself, running his fingers over his enchanted pouch. His Stellazio attracted the attention of semi-sentient monsters. That just figured.

"Wah!" Drake tensed as a yell from Puck came in time with a shudder through the wood, and took a couple of steps out of his hiding place. One of the random flails that the Antlion had made had landed dangerously close to the young prince.

The archer cast a glance towards the Antlion before finding grips in the wood and starting to climb up to the panicking Burmecian. The boy had noticed that the human had a tendency to get the Antlion's attention. After a moment, though, where the Antlion didn't turn around, Puck stopped panicking.

"You alright?" The little Burmecian blinked at Drake as the archer finally reached the hole that the boy was hanging in. The human's fingers were sort of straining to keep him there, though.

"Y-yeah..." The human lifted himself up to climb into the hole right next to Puck, and glanced at the battle for a moment. "Who're you, anyway?" Drake chuckled a little as he wrapped an arm around Puck's waist while reaching up to pull out the arrow that he had shot earlier.

"I'm an archer. One of Vivi's friends." Drake knew that that would speak more for his credibility than saying if he was Freya's or Zidane's friends. Puck would be less likely to run from him.

"Thanks." The Burmecian sat in the front of the hole in front of Drake, looking out at the continuing fight with the Antlion below. The archer looked over the prince's shoulder, and frowned at the situation he saw his friends in. "Wow, Vivi's gotten a lot stronger!"

"Yeah...Hang on a sec." Puck blinked and moved to allow Drake to pull his bow out. The Burmecian stared as Drake leaned out of the hole just enough to shoot the arrow over the Antlion's head, landing near Zidane's foot where he was standing to Vivi's side. The theif's attention immediately went to Drake, who waved his bow before ducking back into the hole. "Just letting them know the two of us are alright and out of range."

"You're the one that saved me, then?" Drake glanced down at the little Burmecian before smiling a bit and looking back towards the fight.

"Yeah. That wasn't an easy shot." Drake watched as Freya launched herself into the air again, and marveled at how easily she soared through the sky. He couldn't see how she stayed up there for so long. The Antlion moved oddly, attracting Drake's attention, and he and the prince watched from the back as a blast of sand and air was directed towards Drake's friends.

"Why aren't you helping them?" Drake frowned a bit as his fingers twitched around his bow. He really wanted to be helping them. He really, honestly did.

"The Antlion's shell is too thick. My arrows won't penetrate." Drake shook his head, a squeak coming from the grip he had on his bow. "I can shoot right through Alexandrian iron armor, but that thing's armor is a lot harder. Has to be, to stand living in the sand. I'm not even sure I could get an arrow through its joints." Puck looked up at Drake, who had a serious, calculating look on his face.

"You only shot one arrow, though. How can you tell that much?" A thin smile crossed Drake's face as Freya began to plummet, landing spear-point first on the Antlion's back.

"An archer's sight is good for much more than simply gauging distance. I can tell the thickness of a creature's fur or shell by how it moves, as well as how things interact with it. The Antlion doesn't even notice when sand gets into its joints. And it stands to reason that it would have grown a thick skin to withstand the stiff winds that kick up around here." Vivi cast a Blizzara on the Antlion, which roared in pain and discomfort.

Drake frowned as he noticed that all of his friends were shaking their heads or trying to rub at their eyes. That's right...the Antlion's sandstorm attack inflicted blindness on the party. He remembered how annoying it was to deal with it in the game. He couldn't imagine how annoying it would be to have to actually go through it. His eyesight was his life, essentially.

Zidane then pulled out a vial and dumped it over his eyes, shaking his head one last time before darting over to Freya, grabbing her spear before she hit him, and pressing another vial into her hand. Vivi was already chanting another spell, while Quina was sort of just sitting there, clueless. Or so Drake thought.

Glittering light blue light spread from Quina and flowed over the others, much to Drake's surprise. All of the warriors straightened, the scrapes and scratches that had been covering their skin disappearing. Freya flew into the air again once her skin started to knit back together, and Zidane delivered eyedrops to Quina.

"Wow..." Drake chuckled at Puck's amazement, unable to tear his eyes away from the fight. The Antlion flailed about randomly, and Zidane tackled Vivi out of the way of one just as the black mage released another spell. Drake winced a little as the Blizzara crashed into the head of the Antlion just after Freya jumped back off of it after landing spear first. "Oh, that was a close one!" Drake smiled slightly. It was like they were watching a play, only the lives of his friends were really in danger.

Drake flinched as a large fireball was thrown at Zidane and Vivi, who quickly got out of the way, the young black mage thanks to the thief, once again. Drake shook his head, his thumb running over one of the scorch marks that remained in the wood.

Quina reeled as s/he was hit by the fireball, and casted an odd magic spell that Drake hadn't ever seen before. Gold light flowed from Quina to the Antlion, almost invisible in the daylight, and a strange orb formed around the Antlion's head. Drake gaped. When had Quina learned Limit Glove?

"Wow! What is that?" Drake knew, for sure. He hadn't been expecting to see it, but he knew it. And he couldn't explain why, so he couldn't say he knew it.

"...heck if I know." Drake winced as the Antlion shrieked in pain as it sank back into its sandpit. "That finished it, though. Here, grab on. I'm gonna get us down from here." Puck wrapped his arms around Drake's neck from behind, and the archer swung the two of them out of the hole and started to carefully climb down.

Drake was glad that his grip was so strong when his foot slipped, and he grunted slightly as Puck's arms tightened. They got down safely, though, and Drake had to gently pry the prince's arms from around his shoulders.

"Your Highness! Are you alright?" Freya rushed over and knelt next to Puck to look him in the face. The boy seemed to calm himself at that, and grinned at the woman. Drake could still tell that he was feeling a little shaken, though.

"Hey, Freya! Whassup?" Drake shook his head a little as Zidane walked up to him, concern in his eyes.

"You alright, Drake?" The human gave his friend a small smile before slipping his bow back over his shoulder, wondering how he had managed to scale down the wood with it in his hand.

"I'm fine. I found out that the Antlion was targeting me cause of this." Drake pulled his Stellazio from his belt pouch, showing it to Zidane. "I don't know why, but as soon as I put it away, it stopped paying attention to me." Zidane frowned a little at the information as the archer tucked the feather back into his vest.

"Why would the Antlion just suddenly go nuts like that, anyway...?" Drake shook his head, frowning a little. He really honestly never understood why the Antlion, which was supposed to be peaceful, went nuts on Puck.

"I dunno, but...I've just got a bad feeling that hasn't gone away since I woke up. Who's at the ambush point?" Freya glanced towards Drake, seeming to notice that he was on edge.

"Dan is, at the moment, but the next shift has already headed down do relieve his group." Drake nodded, glad that they were doing things in shifts. It made it a lot easier to manage. "I'll be heading down as well soon. After the ritual dance." Drake blinked for a moment. That was today, wasn't it? That meant that the invasion _was_ today.

"Ah, that's right, that was today, wasn't it?" Zidane tilted his head to the side as he crossed his arms, looking a bit thoughtful. "Hm. It's supposed to strengthen the sandstorm, isn't it?" Drake nodded, and noticed that Puck wasn't where he had last been. He shrugged to himself, and decided that he simply hadn't noticed when the Burmecian prince had run off.

"I'm certainly going to be able to relax a bit once the sandstorm is strengthened." Drake ran a hand over his forehead, wiping away the slight layer of sweat that he had gotten used to having. Freya and Zidane were walking away as Drake looked over the town, a serious look in his eyes. "Drake? Come on." The archer looked at his friends for a moment before following them, his hands as steady as ever again.

Freya led the way up to the chapel, though they had waited to allow Drake to tell his students where he was going to be. They all simply smiled and waved him on. So the archer was standing off to the side of the chapel, leaning against one of the pillars. He could see Freya speaking to her king off on the other side, but he couldn't hear what they were talking about. Not that he didn't already know. She was telling him about where she had seen Puck, and how.

Drake suppressed a wince as he remembered how close he had gotten to hurting Puck. He really hoped that the king of Burmecia didn't decide to scold him or anything for that. He rubbed his head as the dancers started to get ready for their ritual. He lifted an eyebrow as one of the oracles, the one with the biggest hat, spoke to Freya, but didn't move from where he was standing. He knew it was out of the way. Not to mention he might be able to stop Beatrix, since he was right near the harp.

Quina and Vivi moved to near Drake as everyone got out of the way for the dancers, and Drake closed his eyes for a moment. This was all so surreal. The Hunt Festival, okay, that was something else, but this was the beginning of the end for Cleyra, really. The sandstorm would disappear, and Alexandria invaded. Shortly after, Odin obliterated the tree.

"You alright, Drake? You're looking a little ill." Drake opened an eye to look at Vivi, who was peering up into his face.

"That bad feeling I've had all day is getting worse. Something bad's gonna happen, I know it." Drake really did have a bad feeling, and it truly was getting worse. At the moment, he was feeling fairly sick to his stomach, the way that he had been in Burmecia and Gizamaluke's Grotto. Though it might have been at least partially because he knew that there were going to be people dying soon.

The dancer standing at the harp started to play, the red gem attached to it glittering in the sunlight. Drake closed his eyes as the semi-familiar music washed over him. He was always so sad when it ended the way it did in the game. It really was quite beautiful.

The tapping of the dancers' feet added a beat to the music, and Drake felt himself relaxing slightly, though his nausea remained. The music ended suddenly, and Drake's eyes flew open, looking to the harp. As he remembered from the game, the strings had snapped. What was different, though, was the fact that the woman playing it had been sliced up from the breaking strings. She recoiled, biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain.

One of the oracles stepped towards her, healing her injuries as worried whispers broke out all across the room. Drake knew why, and started to walk towards the balcony, looking up at the sky. As soon as he saw the top of the sandstorm, he saw the energy fading. He couldn't help but tense, wondering how the dryad thought

"Too much mana in the air...I'm sorry, I couldn't keep it from flowing into the strings!" Drake barely heard the dancer's quiet exclamations, staring up at the dissolving sandstorm. His hands clenched on the railing of the balcony. He blocked out the rest of the discussions from inside, forcing himself to calm down.

"I'm scared..." Drake jumped a little as he turned to look at the Constellato that had just appeared next to him, a worried look on her face. "The sand storm has never died before. I don't know what will happen." She turned to look at him, and Drake immediately looked away, not wanting her to see that he knew what could be coming.

"Judging by what's happening up there...the sandstorm will fall apart. The Alexandrians will have a much easier time attacking now." Footsteps behind the two alerted Drake to someone else's presence, but he didn't turn. Cleyra did, though.

"M'lady! Are you harmed?" Drake kept his eyes on the slowly dissolving sandstorm as Cleyra left his side. Drake sighed after the dissolving of the sandstorm grew noticeable, and turned, heading inside again.

"Zidane, Freya. We need all fighters at the ready. The sandstorm is dissolving. We need all the strength we can gather." Everyone gaped at Drake's seriousness, and the oracles started to protest before the king held up his hand.

"You, young sir, are the Chosen of Lindblum, yes?" Drake nodded, fidgeting slightly as all attention was on him once more. "I thank you for rescuing my son. I have worried about him since he chose to leave Burmecia years ago."

Drake rubbed the back of his head, smiling sheepishly. He only did what he had to do, though he didn't want to seem boastful by stating that he was the only one who had been able to take that shot.

"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but we all need to prepare for battle." Drake blinked as he heard a whooshing sound, and turned to look out the balcony. "Especially now that the sandstorm is fading quickly." Drake paled as he recognized the magic behind the dissolving, though no one seemed to notice. The glimpses of blue that he saw through the sand didn't always match the color of the sky.

Without waiting long enough to be polite, Drake turned and dashed out of the building, heading to where his group was already gathering, knowing that one of the oracles would be coming, along with a couple of dancers, and they would bring Vivi along with them.

"Drake!" Jiece and the others were already gearing up when Drake arrive, panting slightly. Everyone looked worried, and Drake paused for a moment before addressing them, looking around at them to make sure that they all had their armor. He was wearing his greave on his left leg, and his bronze vest glinted in the sun.

"Muster at your posts. This is no drill. With the sandstorm missing, they'll be rushing to get up here to catch us off guard." He didn't need to tell them twice. Those that didn't have their armor on grabbed it and started to pull it on as they trotted off; the children headed to the inn, where they would be sent to safe zones. Drake had left the evacuations to the oracles.

From their place high in the tree, Drake could see all across the settlement, including Zidane and Freya disappearing down the tunnels to their ambush point, along with a group of dancers and oracles. Another group was gathered near the inn, awaiting the action. Drake's archers were mostly clumped near where he was, though there were a few in other great vantage points. Drake had given those ones specific instructions on leaving before the enemy got too close, even knowing that there were fighters waiting near the archers to act as defenders. He just hoped that the Black Mages didn't arrive too soon.

"Drake..." The archers all jumped as a female voice came from behind them, and Drake turned to see Cleyra standing there, looking more worried than before. "The stone that powered the magic of the ceremony is in danger, I can feel it..." Drake sighed a little as he looked at the Constellato, suddenly realizing how helpless she was. She had a good deal of power, yes, but only in her realm of influence. Outside of her tree, the woman had no sway.

"If it's taken away, I will bring it back. I promise you that." Everyone stared at Drake's bold promise, though the dryad smiled. Drake hadn't realized just how large a difference his words made to everyone.

And now he realized, he honestly couldn't let Brahne destroy Cleyra. He had to do something to stop her. Which meant, once again, he had to go off on his own. It was risky, and he knew that there was a good chance that he'd get hurt badly, but he had a reason.

"Drake." The archer turned his head a little as he heard Vivi behind him, and made a small hand gesture for the young mage to come and stand next to him. He kept his eyes on the tunnel to the path up the tree, though. "I'm scared..." A soft tug on the sash Drake wore on his hips told him that Vivi had grabbed hold of it to try to comfort himself.

A sound made him turn his head and look to the sky, though, startling the other archers. Drake stiffened as he identified the sound, and knelt to look Vivi in the face. He knew what that sound was, and he had forgotten one important thing: the airship likely could fire on the settlement.

"Vivi, you hear that sound, right?" The mage nodded, fear in his face. "That's likely the Alexandrian airship. They'll probably have cannons to fire on us." Vivi straightened, understanding why Drake had mentioned that. He nodded without even having to hear the question. "I'll help you aim."

As Drake stood, he noticed the archers watching them. A silent hand gesture, and they turned back to their tasks. Drake darted ahead of Vivi to find the perfect place to see the airship, but never fully leaving his sight. Finally, he stopped, spotting the Red Rose. It was the only airship in the sky, and like he thought, there were cannons aimed at the giant tree.

Drake knelt as Vivi finally caught up, and the young mage stood in front of him. Drake pulled his feather out of his vest, mentally asking for help from the Constellato that had given him her favor. He felt a sense of calm come over him and a connection to Vivi, and knew that somehow his silent prayer had been answered.

He felt a sudden sense of vertigo, and suddenly realized he was looking out of Vivi's eyes. Without bothering to look around and see what the world was like to the boy, he directed his attention towards the ship, concentrating on the cannons. He felt Vivi gathering his mana and weaving his spell, and then watched as a dense, small fireball was sent up to the ship's cannon and into the mouth of the barrel, exploding and rendering the weapon useless. The process was repeated for all of the cannons, crippling the airship and keeping it from attacking the settlement.

Then the two of them were separated again, and Drake sat down hard, holding his head as a headache washed through his brain. Vivi seemed to be having the same problem, though he looked a bit better off.

"Wh-what was that?" The headache faded quickly, and Drake got up again, staring up at the ship. It was smoking from one side, and Drake could see soldiers scrambling to put out the fires they had set.

"...The answer to a prayer. C'mon, we'll be needed near the others." Already he could hear the shouts of the ambush team returning from what he hoped had been a fruitful attack, on the part of the defenders.

He knew, though, that an ambush was just a way to delay the attackers. The main fighting would be done within Cleyra itself, and that was where he and his archers would come into play.

His archers looked at him anxiously as he and Vivi returned, and Drake figured that it was because of the booming. He saw Zidane and Freya standing at the entrance to the settlement looking up at his position, and pulled out a bit of parchment and charcoal, writing a short message before grabbing the arrow that he had wrapped orange thread around just below the fletching. He tucked the note under the thread wrapping, and nocked the arrow, aiming for just in Freya's reach.

He loosed the arrow, and watched as Zidane and Freya noticed. The Dragon Knight grabbed the arrow and pulled it out, plucking the note from the wrapping to hand it to Zidane as she took a closer look at his arrow. That actually surprised Drake a bit. He hadn't ever thought that she might have been interested in how his arrows were made.

Zidane waved to their position, and Drake lifted his bow over his head to show exactly where they were. Drake looked around more, and spotted Quina standing with the warriors that had stayed behind, by the inn.

"Looks like the lines have been drawn. All that's left to do is wait for the battle and accept whatever happens." The Cleyran archers knelt next to Drake, though Jeice sent the human an odd look.

"Lines?" Drake closed his eyes with a slight sigh, mentally chastising himself for referencing a battle style that he didn't even know had ever existed here. Before he could answer, though, a shout came from the warriors at the entrance.

"I'll explain later...if there is a later." Drake stood and grabbed one of his undecorated arrows, aiming at the Alexandrians that were pouring out of the entry tunnel. His archers quickly stood to attention, nocking their arrows and aiming at the enemy.

"Clear your minds...Choose a target...and release." The archers did as they were told, though Drake could feel their anxiety. He could understand, having been where they were before. He released his arrow before any of his archers did. He blocked out all sound but his own breathing, picking out a woman from the crowd of soldiers.

With his extreme concentration, he watched the woman that he struck, a redhead, jerk backwards and look down at the arrow that had pierced her breastplate, and collapse backwards. Drake closed his eyes for a moment, silently praying that the souls released here had a kinder life the next time around.

Then the bubble of silence around him was broken as the warriors clashed with the invaders. An odd sound came to his ears, and he lifted his head, looking towards the sky. He swore as he recognized the opalescent bubbles floating swiftly from the Red Rose.

"Eyes to the rear!" The archers looked at Drake, confused, as he nocked an arrow and shot a Black Mage as it came from its bubble. "Mages!" The archers shuffled for a moment before Drake made a decision. "Jeice, you take some men and shoot at that mob below from closer by. Croix, you lead the rest. I'm going to go gather the rest. Vivi, go to Zidane and Freya!" A series of 'Yessir's and Drake was off, dashing across Cleyra to where he knew some of his archers were.

A couple of mages appeared right in front of him, and he jumped to land on the face of one, smacking the other in the face. He spotted some of the warriors guarding a couple of his archers fighting some mages. He plucked an arrow from his main quiver and nocked it, releasing almost immediately to send a mage plummeting from a ledge it had been too close to.

"Sir Drake!" Drake flipped without planting his hands on the ground to smash a foot across the head of another black mage, sending it down the trunk as well. The warriors started to copy him, and the human looked to his archers. One of them was nursing a burn, but the other was unharmed.

"Good, you two are alright. Aaren, take Geoffry down to the inn, where the oracles are. Geoffry, I'm sorry, but I can't ask you to fight with that injury." The injured Burmecian frowned at the human, but nodded and accepted the help. Drake looked to the warriors, and they nodded before following the archers.

Drake went from viewpoint to viewpoint, telling the archers to get back to the main muster point while doing his best to keep out of sight of the Alexandrians. There were three more injuries and a death, thanks to the black mages.

As he ran, he saw Zidane escorting civilians and the injured to the inn, where all of the warriors were gathered, fighting valiantly against the mages and the soldiers. As Zidane returned with more injured, he yelled something to the soldiers, and everyone started to head up to the chapel, similar to how Drake recalled in the game.

"What are you watching, boy?" Drake jumped a little as he heard a woman's voice, and spun to face a familiar brunette Alexandrian. His eyes widened, and he jumped back to get more distance between himself and the Alexandrian general. "The lone human in all of this forsaken place...And yet you fight against your own kind, choosing instead to support the Burmecians and the Cleyrans... Your resolve is admirable."

Drake stared at General Beatrix as she stood a few yards away from him, her sword still in its sheathe. She seemed to be studying him, but he couldn't quite figure out why. His hand had crept up to his quiver while the two of them stared, and yet the general didn't seem to be taking any offensive motions.

"I was told to kill you on sight, while my soldiers were told to flee on sight. There is something strange going on in this battle, but it isn't my place to pry." Beatrix lifted up her hand, and several opalescent orbs floated down around Drake as the general turned to leave. "After that battle with young Miss Kings...My queen discovered just how stubborn you can be. I will take no chances, but I have other duties to tend to. These mages will be more than enough to deal with you."

Drake growled with frustration as Beatrix simply walked away from him, and spun the arrow that he had in his hand before stabbing it into the face of the nearest black mage, turning to slam another into a third, and nocking the arrow onto his bowstring and shooting a fourth in the face.

The two mages that he hadn't stabbed or shot got up as the other three started to close in. Drake could feel them shaping the mana for spells, and plucked three arrows from his quiver, dropping to one knee as he held his bow diagonally and shot the three arrows at the mages. They each flew back as Drake turned his attention back to the two mages he had kicked, just in time to dive to the side to dodge a fireball.

Another couple of arrows shot from his bow, this time separately, and all the mages were gone...though a familiar opalescent orb still hung in the air. Drake panted a bit to catch his breath, and stared at it, his brain racing to catch up with what had just transpired.

After about a second, he reached back over his shoulder and capped his open quiver, slinging his bow over his shoulder as he did so. And then he jumped right into the waiting orb, knowing that this was his best chance at stopping Queen Brahne before she summoned Odin. He still didn't know how he was going to do it, but it seemed like if he made things up on the fly, they would work out.

The ship was actually fairly calm when he popped out of the transporter pod, but he ducked right behind it as he heard footsteps coming. There was a pause, and then the whooshing sounds of the teleporting orbs leaving the pods.

"How many more mages do we have to send down there? We barely have enough for that thing Her Majesty wanted them for. Whatever that is." Drake held his breath, hoping that whoever this woman was talking to actually knew.

"Who knows." Well, maybe it just wasn't to be. "I'm more worried about Her Highness. I overheard Her Majesty saying something about Princess Garnet getting executed once we return." Drake's blood froze.

He hadn't forgotten about it, sure, but the thought of it still made him worry. He knew that they'd be able to get there long before the Red Rose, but he still had cause to worry.

"C'mon, let's go report to the lieutenant. Though why we have to report every time we send mages out is beyond me." Drake poked his head out as the two soldiers went up the stairs, and crept out, scanning the area as his brain went into overdrive.

The ship was a good deal larger than the three screens or so that was provided in the game. As he moved to the edge and leaned over it, he saw that the cannon hatches were closed, but there were still holes in them. The hull was covered in scarring, not just from the fire he had helped Vivi with, but handholds to aid with cleaning.

Quick as a flash, the man looped his bow over one shoulder, where it was out of the way but still easy for him to grab. He climbed down the side of the hull, trusting in his hand strength to keep himself from plummeting to the ground far below. He looked up towards the queen's balcony, seeing just how well he could see her placement.

Drake moved over to one of the hatches and hooked his leg through the circular metal hinge as it stuck out of the ship. He braced himself with his other leg as he felt mana increasing to painful amounts near the queen. His bow was taken off of his shoulder and an arrow was plucked from the quiver as he concentrated on Queen Brahne.

His eyesight narrowed onto the black orb in her hand as he drew his arrow back, time seeming to stand still. He adjusted for the wind that he could see, aiming away from the orb a little. He took a deep breath in and then let it out just as the mana for the queen's summoning hit critical. His arrow was released as he started to actually see the mana materialize, and hold his breath as he watched the arrow race away.

Just as the mana started to create a ray that would create the portal, the arrow struck, a blur that shattered the orb, sending the pieces flying towards the ground, shattering the careful weave of the mana. Drake didn't take the time to celebrate his shot, looping his bow over his shoulder and clambering back up to the dock as the faint shriek of anger from the queen drifted to him. He barely noticed opalescent orbs floating past him, and blinked as a hand appeared to help him over the railing.

Drake grinned a little at Freya and accepted her hand as he hauled himself the last bit over the railing, huffing a little as he finally noticed the alarm. He gestured for the others to follow him as he dived back into his hiding spot, hearing the pounding footsteps of soldiers.

"We managed to see that shot of yours while we were coming here. I'm quite impressed." Drake smiled a bit at Freya, glancing at her for a moment before turning his attention back to their situation.

"I'm afraid we don't have time for that, Freya. I overheard two soldiers speaking as soon as I got here, myself. They seem to have heard Queen Brahne announce that Princess Garnet will be executed once the Red Rose returns to Alexandria." Drake could feel Zidane tense next to him. Before the monkey-tailed man could say anything, Drake held a hand up, hearing slower footsteps. "More soldiers with guards."

They all held their breaths as the soldiers stepped out front of the teleport pots. "This way! Hurry up!" The soldier that was speaking sounded fairly annoyed, having likely been scolded for something. "You four, get on the telepod and go to Alexandria immediately." They all perked up as they heard the order that was given, and Drake had to grab Zidane's shoulder to keep him from leaving their hiding spot.

If he remembered right, this segment had happened before Beatrix reported to the queen in the game, but Drake had a feeling that that had been changed. There was a good deal that he had changed simply by his being there, and then there were things that just were different. Now that Drake had seen how armies on Gaia worked, he doubted that a general would wait so long to report back. It seemed...disrespectful.

The four of them waited in tense suspense as the four black mages walked past, but relaxed as the soldier walked away, the pods now calibrated to Alexandria. Drake stood after a moment, and peered about to make sure that there weren't any soldiers about.

"That's our ticket back to Alexandria, at least." Drake turned to look at the others, ignoring the odd look Freya was sending him. Drake felt most at ease in the air or someplace with a great view, and this airship, despite being enemy territory, was both.

"Let's get going, then! Dagger's in danger!" Drake blinked, wondering if this was the first time the two names had been connected around him. He mentally shrugged, though, and helped Vivi up into the pod on the end before jumping into the one that neither Zidane nor Freya had used already. He heard Zidane's voice as clearly as though his brother was right next to him as his orb flew towards Alexandria. "Dagger! I'm coming!"

Drake simply sat back and relaxed as much as he could as they flew to Alexandria. It didn't take too long to get there, and Drake swore he got vertigo as they plummeted down the west tower of Alexandria castle. He landed easily on his feet, bending his knees into a crouch as he looked around, alarmed by the stones moving about around them. After a moment, though, he recognized it as the stairs down to the dungeon appearing. He never had understood that; it seemed so awkward.

Freya and Zidane did the same for a moment, the female of the group helping Vivi back to his feet as he had fallen again. Two sets of footsteps, one accompanied by loud clanking, made the four of them look to the stairs.

"I'm outta here. I'm goin' to Evil Forest to save my bro." Drake blinked at Marcus as he dashed past, relieved that everything on their side had gone according to the storyline. Zidane seemed similarly surprised and relieved, though Drake looked at the armored man appearing from the steps after Marcus.

"You heartless cur!" Drake smirked slightly to himself. They were a few seconds early, but he'd managed to save Cleyra. Odin took the least amount of mana to summon, and according to the soldiers he'd overheard, there had been barely enough mages for that summon. "Eh? YOU!"

Steiner looked astonished at their presence, and Drake glanced at his friends before looking back, and then did a double-take as he saw that they were already heading off. In the game, there had been a bit of dialogue here, but it looked like Zidane wasn't in the mood to deal with the tin knight.

"No time, Steiner!" Drake glanced down at the ground and saw the familiar crest of Alexandria, seeing why there hadn't been any discussion before he trotted after the others.

"Why is everyone leaving me behind?" Drake paused in the door and looked back at him, a little stressed. Zidane hadn't seemed to have heard.

"Are you coming or not? The princess's life is in danger!" Drake turned and started after the others as he heard the knight's reaction behind him. He paused again and looked back. "I heard it myself, on the Red Rose. The queen is going to have Princess Garnet executed as soon as she returns!"

This seemed to convince Steiner much quicker than in the game. His armor clanked as he started after Drake, who ran to catch up with the others. He paused as he saw Marcus standing by the portcullis, glad that he had noticed them.

"Watch out! I'm closin' the gate!" Drake stepped clear as Steiner made it past the gate, and the sharp metal objects dropped right in front of a pair of soldiers that had been chasing him.

"What are you doing here, Marcus?" Zidane was as surprised as Drake was, though it looks like he had been running just a little too fast.

"It's a long story. I'm gonna go to Evil Forest now and help Blank." Drake panted a little as Marcus turned to look at him. The swordsman held out a fist, and Drake smiled lopsidedly, reaching his out to bump it with him. It was a gesture that he had taught the whole troupe. "You guys keep yourselves safe. Drake, the Boss is gonna want to talk to you sometime." Drake nodded, and gestured for him to get going.

"Good luck! We're gonna go find Dagger!" Marcus bumped fists with Zidane before running out of there. Zidane glanced at the shouting soldiers before leading the way out of the tower. Steiner took over then, leading them to the east tower.

"Weimar! Report!" The Pluto Knight jumped as his captain burst in, saluting him.

"What is it you want me to report on, sir!" Steiner huffed a little as he stared at his soldier.

"Any information on the whereabouts of the princess!" Drake stepped forwards, smiling slightly at the knight that tensed at his appearance.

"Or the little clowns, about yea tall." Drake held his hand up about as tall as Zorn and Thorn were. He hadn't heard their names from anyone yet, so he didn't want to use their names.

"I don't know where the princess is, sir, but I heard that Zorn and Thorn were arguing in the Queen's chambers!" Zidane nodded, and dashed out of the tower, startling the two knights stationed there. Drake chased after him, waving. They all ran to the south, towards the castle proper.

Zidane tripped the soldiers that charged at him, and Freya simply knocked them out. Drake followed his brother up the stairs, pausing to make sure that Vivi was keeping up. Steiner was huffing and clanking along, but keeping up. Drake followed after Zidane, loping along the long passage to the north-facing hallway, where Drake knew that the queen's chambers were.

They all got to the chambers as Zidane poked about, and Drake panted a bit, surprised that he wasn't more exhausted. He must have been getting more fit. They split up without discussing it, and started to look around. Drake, despite knowing where the switch was, went to the niche next to the fireplace, poking at the statue. The fireplace next to him groaned and started to move, making him jump. He noticed that Steiner was frozen in place, his hand next to the candle.

"...Well, that was unexpected." Drake nodded to Zidane's comment, and followed Freya down the steps, his bow in hand as he covered her. He blinked at the turning bridge, mentally shaking his head at it. There was so much here that he didn't quite understand.

The stairwell was another tower, but without windows to the outside, Drake had no idea which tower, or even if it extended above the main body of the castle like a proper tower. The stone was all a dank gray, a stark contrast to the clean slate gray that had been in the queen's quarters. There was water dripping down the walls, which made them all try to avoid them, along with the strange slime that was causing the discoloration more and more the farther down the shaft.

They all took their turns on the bridge, though Drake helped Vivi, holding onto the railing for his balance. They all trotted down the long spiral stairs to the platform at the bottom. Drake glanced down one of the passages and saw the Gargan Roo as Zidane went the other way.

"What are you doing here!" Drake perked up as he heard the voice of one of the jesters, pulling an arrow out of his quiver as he trotted to back up the other four.

"So meddlesome, you are! Mercy no more!" Drake frowned a little at Thorn's announcement, quickly drawing his arrow and shooting a bell off of the jester's hat, making sure to keep from aiming at Dagger, off at the far end of the chamber.

"Ack!" Drake smirked at the jesters as the attention was turned back to him. The archer ignored the bellowing in his ear from Steiner who had spotted the princess at the far end of the room.

"You!" Drake flicked another arrow out of his quiver and nocked it, tilting his head a little as the little jesters started to weave their mana. Vivi stepped forwards, and broke their weave with a well-placed fireball. Drake blinked as he realized that this was the twin magic of the game. Instead of actually giving each other magic, they simply wove the magic together. That made things more sensible, but at the time made things a little more troublesome.

The two of them scowled at Vivi for a moment before bouncing again, their bells jingling. Drake blinked at the rhythmic chiming, something in the back of his head recognizing it. With a mental shrug, he shot an arrow through one of the bells, eliminating one of the notes in the duo's absurd bell-song.

That was when he realized what the strange music was, and almost laughed out loud. What a way for whatever god or goddess was in charge of that to make a reference to one of the most insane enemies of the series, though it fit because of what they were.

'Great, now I'm gonna have Kefka's theme stuck in my head for forever.' Drake readied another shot, much to the aggravation of the jesters. Another bell fell to the floor, and Drake's eyes widened, noticing something.

"The bells are what they use with their magic!" Drake glanced at Vivi as the young mage noticed the exact same thing he had. Zidane and Freya both looked at the two mana users.

Drake shot another bell off, a smirk on his face as the two jesters blanched. "Get rid of the bells and they can't cast spells. ...Why did I just rhyme." Drake dropped his guard for a moment to shake his head, smiling despite himself.

Zidane's only reaction was to laugh and dart at the jesters, but he didn't attack them, instead snatching something from inside Zorn's sleeve. Drake didn't pay any attention to what it was, and simply shot the last bell off of Thorn's hat.

"Damn you! We will get you for this!" Drake blinked at how quickly the battle ended, the mana the two had dissolving without the bells to bind it to them.

"Matters not to us. Finished with Garnet, we are." Drake's heart flipped at those words, even though he knew that she was still alive. He ignored the little mages yelling that they were too late as he dashed after Zidane across the chamber, his bow already looped over his shoulder.

A clang and a yelp made him glance back to see that Steiner had tripped Thorn before moving towards the far end of the chamber. Drake jumped right over the steps like they were a hurdle, and skidded to a stop, turning as a bit of dust puffed up, yet another reminder that he needed to replace his shoes.

Zidane and Steiner both tried to wake the girl with their voices, and Drake rolled his eyes, gently scooping up the woman and pressing his fingers to her throat. His shoulders relaxed as he felt her pulse, strong and steady. While the others made a big fuss over the possibility that she was dead, Freya held her hand over the princess's mouth and nose, reacting as Drake had.

"Her heart's still beating and her breathing is normal." Zidane took a deep breath as Drake gathered Dagger into his arms, freeing up Zidane to fight.

"Let's get out of here. Dagger, you're gonna be alright." Drake huffed a little as he stood, not used to carrying something so heavy.

The trip up the staircase felt far longer to Drake than it had down. When they got to the turning bridge, Zidane sheathed his daggers and took Garnet from Drake, who rubbed his arms. The princess wasn't heavy, but even a light weight could take its toll.

They all made it across the bridge just fine, and Drake cracked his neck as they waited in the queen's quarters, readying himself for what was to come.

Zidane set Dagger down on the couch next to the candle switch as Drake moved over to the door into the chamber, his bow in his left hand as he waited for the fight he knew was coming to arrive. Freya checked and made sure that no one followed them up the spiral tower.

Drake closed his eyes as Steiner questioned his loyalty to Queen Brahne, calming his nerves. Dagger was safe, already under their protection. All they had to do was survive a battle and a crash, and they were scott free.

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**End Note**: I actually had a lot of fun writing this chapter. XD And I apologize if anyone has Kefka's theme song stuck in their head after this. With any luck, I will be able to work faster now that what I'm typing has reached something that I've been mulling over.

Enjoy and review!


	5. End of the Line

Chapter 5: End of the Line

_Authoress' note_: Okay, I definitely intended to get this chapter out sooner, but work intervened. Again. On another note, many thanks to Anasazi Darkmoon for consistently reveiwing! You always make my day, my friend.

_Disclaimer_: I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise. This should be apparent, as I'm still being given hours, instead of choosing them.

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Drake opened his eyes as he heard footsteps, and silently moved towards the back of the room, turning his head as he did so to watch the entrance to the queen's chambers, noticing Zidane still looking worriedly over Dagger, who was sleeping deeply on the couch.

He noticed Freya taking note of his movement, despite Zidane and Steiner arguing over whose fault it was that the princess had been harmed. Drake idly flipped his bow around as the steps became louder, turning around completely as Zorn and Thorn charged into the room.

"There they are! There is no escape!" Steiner jumped visibly at their voices, clanking as he quickly turned around. Drake rested his eyes on Beatrix, knowing that this was the first time that he'd actually fought against her, despite their encounter on Cleyra.

The woman general's eye met his, and narrowed slightly. Drake smirked a little, flipping his bow over his hand as he pulled his Stellazio from his vest to fiddle with it a little. He was a little nervous about this fight. The general noted it before turning her eyes back to the man in full plate armor.

"Welcome back, Steiner." She flicked a bit of hair off of her shoulder as she greeted the Pluto Knight. Drake briefly wondered if she'd had a crush on the man already. "Where have you been all this time? Don't tell me you have been enjoying the company of these scoundrels." Drake smirked a little. The fact that she'd noticed said yes to his idea, but the tone she was speaking in said no.

Zidane immediately took offense, scowling and jumping off of the two foot platform to stand next to Steiner, as Drake was on the other side. The archer stowed away his Stellazio quickly, stepping back to put space between him and the brewing fight. Freya put a hand on his shoulder as she passed him, creating a sort of line between the two ranged fighters and the enemy.

"What the hell! The only scoundrels around here are you and your fat queen!" Drake closed his eyes momentarily at Zidane's tendency to let his tongue get away from him while he was angry. Wood brushing against wood sounded as Drake's arm moved, drawing an arrow from his quiver, before he rethought his decision and put it back, moving towards Dagger more. He didn't want to take this woman's life, and so he'd concentrate only on protecting the princess.

"Fools like you will never learn." Vivi met Drake's eyes and nodded slightly, seeing the archer's decision to not fight. Like the sword, the arrow was meant for only one thing: killing. It didn't matter whether it was a monster, human, or otherwise.

Drake settled into a steady position and waited for the battle to be done, his legs spread the same width as his shoulders with both of his hands resting on his bow, which was held sideways. He eyed the jesters, only one of which had a bell, silently daring them to do anything.

Beatrix, meanwhile, had tried to attack Vivi, only to have Freya step in the way and block with her spear. Zidane attacked her from the side, kicking her with both of his feet and knocking her into a Thundara spell from the young black mage.

The woman general seemed to be greatly angered by their sudden show of teamwork, pacing backwards with her sword held at the ready. Drake noticed her glancing towards him rather often, and he couldn't help but smirk slightly, his bare fingers gliding along the wood of his bow.

A strange sensation under his fingers made him lift his bow to take a closer look at the wood, his heart skipping half a beat. As he had feared, there was a crack making its way up the shaft of the bow. He grimaced, a little disappointed that he was going to be unable to use this bow soon. But who knew. Perhaps he'd get an even better bow. They would be returning to Lindblum soon, and that was the city of archers.

"Vivi!" Drake turned his attention to the fight again as Zidane called for the young black mage, holding Beatrix back as Steiner gave a potion to Vivi. Beatrix was scowling at him, and Drake took a step forwards before stopping himself, feeling mana gathering around Beatrix's blade.

"I'll kill all enemies of Alexandria!" Drake's eyes widened as Beatrix dashed forwards, slashing at Freya. He quickly moved to cover the princess, grunting softly as the shockwave of the sword spell hammered into him. He was still better off than his friends were, though. He watched as Beatrix walked over to Steiner, holding her sword towards him. He watched as she held her sword to his throat, holding his breath.

The woman general hesitated, and then pulled her sword away from the Pluto Knight's throat, turning and walking away from him. "Never step into this land again." Drake started to rummage in his pouch for potions, keeping an eye on the woman general.

Zidane was the first that Drake tended to, and then Vivi as Zidane quickly revived Freya and Steiner, keeping between Beatrix and Dagger at all times. Freya, after she was up, mainly stayed between Drake and the general, being oddly protective of the archer. She even passed a potion to him with a meaningful look, and he rolled his eyes before tossing the liquid back.

"Your pathetic powers are useless against me." Drake grimaced as he tilted his head back down, recapping the empty bottle. Beatrix looked a little flustered, but her normal arrogant look was still in place. Zidane growled a little, looking aggravated.

"Hey, wait a minute. You're the general of this kingdom." Beatrix frowned at Zidane, and Drake could almost see her asking herself what this lowborn thief was doing, questioning her status. "As the general of Alexandria, what is your sworn duty!" Drake stifled a smile. He knew that this was how his brother had managed to get Steiner to shut up. "Isn't it to protect Dagger – your Princess Garnet?" Drake glanced towards the comatose princess, still the closest one to her. Drake didn't even flinch as Zidane swung his arm to point at the couch. "I'm sure you know who's sitting over there."

Beatrix seemed startled at the demand, and looked past the archer to the orange-decked young woman. "It can't be..." Drake stepped to the side as she stepped past Steiner and Freya, almost seeming in a daze. "Princess..." Drake looked to the jesters as they scowled at Zidane, and smirked a little. They had just successfully pulled the wood from over the general's eyes. "...So, it was true. The queen really did mean to kill her." Drake turned his eyes to Beatrix. In the game it was shown where she had started to doubt Brahne, but this was a good deal more emotional. Drake could see the despairing look that crossed her face. Garnet was certainly well loved.

Drake ignored the yelp that Steiner gave off, and decided that the man had some trust issues. He didn't seem to believe anyone. Drake didn't lie often, unless it had to do with his past. He knew Zidane wouldn't lie about anything concerning the princess, and he doubted that Freya was even capable of lying. Vivi was simply far too naïve to.

Beatrix noticed Steiner's loud denial of the queen's falsities, and stared at him, an indescribable look on her face. Drake couldn't figure if it was pity or understanding. The general sighed a little before shaking her head slightly.

"Steiner, it is time for you to accept the truth." Beatrix took a deep breath, deciding on something. She looked towards Vivi, past Drake. "...My heart is set. All this time, I have been mistaken." Drake blinked as he now realized that Beatrix's eyes were on him. He tilted his head to the side, a slightly clueless look on his face.

"I hate to say this, but the lady's right, Rusty. You'd better learn to accept it." Drake blinked at Freya, who hadn't gotten up from where she was kneeling yet. She hadn't been hurt too badly, but Drake figured she was trying to control her temper. Drake watched Beatrix turn to her out of the corner of his eye, and tilted his head from side to side, releasing tension in his neck.

"Citizens of Burmecia, please forgive me." Drake watched as some of Freya's hair moved like she'd just huffed, and leaned against the wall as the dragoon knight stood. He was right, she was really angry.

"It's too late to seek forgiveness!" Drake and Vivi both flinched. Freya rarely snapped at anyone. Freya took a deep breath to calm herself, and turned around to face the general. "...But you can still save Dagger." She gestured towards the princess as the twins frowned. Drake cast a glare at them, his blue-grey eyes seeming more like steel for a moment. "I tell you this because I acknowledge your powers. Help your princess." Drake translated that in his head even as he kept the attention of the jesters. Freya was referring to Beatrix's healing powers.

Beatrix frowned, looking a little uncertain. She glanced at Dagger slightly. "I don't know if I can...but I will give it a try." She turned to face Dagger, and knelt next to the couch. Drake took a step back from her to stay out of the way of the spells she was about to weave. He noticed the jester twins sneering from out of the corner of his eye, but didn't look towards them. The line that he remembered from the game where Beatrix doubted her ability never came, though Drake figured she might have whispered it to herself.

The mana was woven, and Drake had a hard time seeing what exactly the spell was, not really knowing what white magic spells looked like. He knew the protective spells that Anastasia had on her bracelets, but only because he'd been told which was which spell. He could read black magic pretty well, thanks to how often he'd seen it.

Orange light spiraled down over Garnet's chest, and sparked angrily just as it touched her. Drake narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, wondering at that reaction. He hadn't ever seen that, even in black magic.

"Irrevocable is the spell we have cast!" Drake glared at Thorn as he shouted, his fingers twitching towards his arrows. Beatrix didn't seem to notice, her mana weaving to form the same spell again. The spell sparked again as it touched Dagger's chest, but not as vigorously.

"It is useless!" This time Zidane also turned to glare at the jesters, one of his hands moving to a dagger. Beatrix still ignored the little mages, putting more power into the weave of the spell. This time the spell didn't spark, and the place that the spell touched glowed briefly before it faded into the rest of her body. Drake had to admit it looked a good deal more convincing than the spell he'd seen when Garnet and Zidane were just characters from a video game.

Beatrix stood up as Garnet stirred, and Drake sent a smug look at the shocked twins. The princess sat up and blinked around, looking rather disoriented. Drake could understand, seeing as she'd been unconscious for a long while.

"Princess, are you alright?" Dagger turned her attention to Beatrix, and gently touched her own head, seeming to get her wits back.

"Ohh, my head...what happened...?" Or perhaps Drake was wrong. Then again, she was still as inexperienced as she had been when he had last seen her. Had he been unconscious, he likely would have said he was alright while looking around.

"Dagger!" Zidane hopped up the dias to where Garnet was, a relieved look on his face. The princess blinked at him, a bit startled by him being there, and then looked around, seeing Vivi, Steiner, Freya, and Drake.

"You're all here." She looked at Drake, tilting her head at him. He lifted an eyebrow at her, wondering why he'd gotten that look, and then realized that he might have changed physically as well.

"What is all this ruckus!" Drake jumped at the high-pitched, angry voice. He immediately turned his attention to the door, where Queen Brahne was entering. He resisted pulling a face at how her body moved as well as her opulent style, and took a step towards the faux fireplace. The twins, on the other hand, moved towards the queen, Zorn speaking first.

"The princess has awakened, Your Majesty!"

"Kidnapping the princess, they are, Your Majesty!"

Both of the twins hopped in place as Freya started to inch back towards the fireplace as well. The queen simply looking in the general direction of the intruders, and Drake wondered just how many medical problems she had. She certainly looked like she had gout. She then turned to look at the twins, waving her fan at her face, though nothing about her but her arm, and the skin there, moved.

"Have you extracted all the eidolons from her?" Drake met the glance of Freya, and nodded slightly to her. He was ready to get moving. Freya helped Vivi up the last step, so he wouldn't trip when they needed to run.

"We have, Your Majesty!" Drake's hand twitched towards his arrows again, and he forced himself to calm down. Starting the fight now would help nothing. The queen turned around, presenting her back to Drake and the others.

"Then, what are you waiting for? Take Garnet and throw her in prison!" Drake watched as Steiner straightened a little, and could only imagine the stern look on his face. His queen had just spoken the words he had been hoping she wouldn't. Beatrix, on the other hand, Drake could see, and she looked furious. As the jester twins shouted that they would imprison Garnet immediately, the general hopped down from the dias to stand between the two groups.

"I won't allow that." The female general didn't have her hand on her sword, but her head was held high, refusing to bow it to the queen any longer. Queen Brahne's fan paused for a moment before she swung around, and Drake glanced to Zidane as he gestured for Garnet to take a step back. The princess looked a little concerned and confused still, her mouth open a little as if she were about to call to the woman that Drake already knew had simply adopted her.

"Oh? Are you defying me as well?" Drake noticed Zidane inching towards the switch, doing his best to move casually.

"Your Majesty, it is my duty to protect the princess. I beg you, reconsider. Please do not harm the princess anymore." Beatrix turned her head to look back at the sand-blasted group, her good eye glinting with determination. Drake couldn't help but wonder at this sudden strength. "All of you, leave here at once!" Beatrix turned back to her queen, crouching into a fighting-ready stance.

Freya stepped off of the stairs, taking her spear from where it was resting in the crook of her neck to also slide into a fighting stance. "I'm staying! Zidane, go. Now!" Drake paused for a moment, looking at the two female knights, his hands still at his sides. Queen Brahne chortled slightly, looking amused.

"You two are joining forces? How amusing..." She turned to the twins, the amused look from her face gone. "Get rid of them." She turned around and continued her slothful way out of the chamber, only pausing as Garnet called out to her. The twins moved to stand between the queen and the intruders, despite being unable to cast their magic. Drake tensed, knowing what was coming. Zidane seemed to know something was up as well, even as he gestured for Vivi to go over to where Drake was.

"Freya! Be careful!" Steiner clattered up the stairs to the dias, giving the women space. The dragon knight waved a hand to show that she would be fine, her eyes and attention staying on the twins. Drake jumped a little as the fireplace started to move, and glanced over to Zidane, who was gently tugging the princess towards the passage. Vivi scampered down the stairs first, his hat bobbing. "Drake! C'mon, let's go!" The archer nodded and gestured for Zidane to go first, looking back at the twins as they called for the Bandersnatch. He started down the steps as he saw the monster arriving, his legs moving as fast as they could down the steps.

"Bandersnatch, bite their heads off!" Drake heard Steiner yell for them to wait up as he jumped onto the turning bridge, grabbing onto the railing as it turned all the way around. He noticed Zidane giving him an odd look, and lifted an eyebrow. Steiner clattered onto the bridge as it made a return trip, and Drake waited for him to make it to him before reaching out and yanking him onto solid ground. The knight stumbled and glared at him, and Drake simply tilted his head with a slight smirk before trotting down the stairs as fast as he could, hearing the roaring of another Bandersnatch.

Steiner was soon clattering down the steps as fast as he could after Drake, who was quickly catching up with Zidane and the others. They all stumbled a little at a loud thud that shook the ground under their feet, and Drake actually ended up falling down and rolling a fair ways before catching himself on one of the larger steps just before he rolled off the edge into the center of the tower. He scrambled back away from edge, his eyes wide.

"Ho-ly..." He took a deep breath and waved a hand to Zidane, who looked as worried as he had been. "I'm good. Just wishing that these stairs had railings." He muttered to himself under his breath just as he noticed black mages below him. "Vivi! Mages!"

The young black mage turned and spotted the mages, loosing a Thundara spell that arced from one to the next, dissolving them all into the black mist that Drake stared at, confused. This was the first time he'd seen black mages dissolve instead of simply fall to the ground dead like before. The sound of clattering behind him made him shake his head and keep moving down, his bow still in his hand. The bridge that had been lifted into place was retracted, and they all ran down the steps as fast as they could, only to be faced with a large white creature with the body of a huge dog, big floppy ears and all, with the face of a Qu.

Drake stopped and let Steiner charge past him, not trusting the condition of his bow. Zidane already was attacking the Bandersnatch, his daggers drawing angry red lines down its ear. He then backed away as Vivi cast Blizzard on it, which made it fall over the side of the stairs, to the fate that Drake would have met if he hadn't been lucky.

"Yeesh. Tough things, those." Drake trotted down to Zidane, passing Steiner, who was panting, and the archer glanced upwards as he heard another roar from a Bandersnatch, only to note that the tower was actually built to repel attacks coming from below.

"We need to keep going. Who knows how many of those things have been bred for something like this." Zidane nodded and gestured for the princess to follow him, leading the way back down the tower. After a little while, they noticed that the clattering stopped, and Drake paused to look back at Steiner. "What's the holdup?" The others also turned to look, even as Drake lifted a hand to ruffle his hair to loose some of the sand there.

"What am I doing here...?" Drake rolled his eyes a little at Steiner's abrupt questioning of himself, still on the steps rather than the flat area that the others were on. Zidane glanced over at Drake, who gestured with his bow.

"What's the matter?" Drake honestly thought this part of the game was a little silly. Just as a way for them to remove the tank of the group. The knight shook his head, a slightly tired look on his face.

"Beatrix served the queen all these years, and now she is turning against her. Freya lost her comrades, yet she insists on protecting the princess... The queen will never forgive them. She will kill them both." Drake lifted an eyebrow at the seriousness in Steiner's voice. Not just for Beatrix, but for Freya's situation as well.

Drake supposed that Steiner could connect to them better than the rest, seeing as all three of them were knights of a sort. Zidane and Drake were both simply talented civilians. Vivi was a very talented young mage, still greatly naïve, even though he had gone through the same things as the rest of them. Though Steiner hadn't seen the war they'd seen. Had he known that, perhaps he wouldn't have been charging up the stairs back to where Freya and Beatrix were, now that he'd extracted a promise from Zidane to keep Princess Garnet safe and bring her to Doctor Tot in Treno.

"Princess, I bid you farewell!" Drake watched Steiner until he was out of sight, and shook his head as he trotted down to the others. Things were going to be difficult now. Their strongest fighter was now gone, and Drake's bow was almost too damaged to use. Drake also knew that the princess's ability to summon had been taken from her.

"Everybody is fighting for me..." Drake rested a hand on Dagger's shoulder with a soft smile as she held a hand to her heart, looking a bit scared. She looked at him with wide eyes, and Drake saw that there were tears there, along with tearstains. She really was terrified. He gently dried a tear, that soft smile still on his face.

"Because you were born to be their leader. And more than that, they want to see you safe, as a friend." Dagger looked startled at Drake's words as he gestured for her to lead the way. After a moment, she dried the rest of her own tears and lifted her chin, seeming more like a princess for a moment than simply a scared young woman.

"That's right." Drake glanced to Zidane, and smirked a little as he saw that his brother looked a little miffed, and he knew the reason why. He'd managed to turn Dagger's head more than he had, with such a small gesture. "They're all fighting for you...and for Alexandria. They're moving forward, giving everything they've got! So we have to move on, just like they are. We can't stop now!" Drake nodded to Zidane's words, though his smile dropped as he heard a now-familiar roar.

"Company!" Drake pulled Dagger forwards as Zidane rushed past them, connecting his daggers into the double-sided sword. Vivi also called up a Fire spell to cover him. Zidane got a lucky strike in, slashing out the Bandersnatch's eyes, which Vivi's spell then cauterized. The beast lashed out with its paw, smashing Zidane into the wall. Drake yelled and dashed forwards, lashing out with kicks that knocked the beast off of the level walkway onto the ground below, where it landed with a loud, sickening thud. Drake cringed at that and knelt next to his brother, making sure that he was alright.

"Yeesh. Glad you never kicked _me_." Drake laughed at the breathless joke, and offered Zidane a hand up, glad that his brother had nothing happen to him other than the breath knocked out of him. "You're really starting to use those kicks of yours pretty well." Drake gave Zidane a lopsided grin as they started away again, racing down the steps to the landing they had found the room Dagger had been in.

There was blood splashed all across the platform, and Drake skidded a little in the liquid, swinging his arms to avoid falling into the quarter of the platform that was missing. It looked like one of the Bandersnatches had fallen down there. Drake caught Vivi as he tried to jump over one of the pools, and carried the young black mage on his shoulder until they reached the gargant station.

"Kupo!" Drake paused to look back as a moogle flew from the chamber that Garnet had been in, and set Vivi down, now that they were free of the blood, and catches the moogle as he nearly flew into him. "Take me with you, kupo!" Drake blinked at the moogle, not remembering something like this from the game.

"Just bring him, Drake! We don't have the time!" Drake glanced at Zidane and set the moogle on his shoulder, where it latched onto his quiver for dear life as the archer dashed after his friends, leaving red footprints behind him.

The metal gate that sprang up in front of the group made him pause, and he backed up, spinning around to dash the other way, even as Zidane protested the roadblock. Another gate clanged into place, and Drake slammed his hand into one of the bars blocking his way, a snarl on his face. He turned to look at Zorn as the jester appeared, a death glare on his face.

"They fell for it again!" Drake lifted his free hand and reached for his quiver, though he paused as he felt the moogle hanging there. He reached around the shaking creature anyway, and pulled free one of the arrows he'd made in Cleyra.

"Really stupid, they are!" Drake closed his eyes at Thorn's words, mentally deciding which of the two jesters to aim for. They were equally annoying. After a second, he made his decision and snapped his eyes to Thorn, quickly drawing back his bow and pointing it at the startled jester.

**CRACK!**

The snapping of wood startled everyone, but most especially the archer that was now kneeling, a hand clamped over the right side of his face. Blood splattered on the ground, and was leaking from under the leather that protected Drake's fingers from the bowstring. Blood also seeped from a series of gashes in his left arm, courtesy of the violent shattering of his bow.

"Drake!" The archer closed his eyes as he heard Zidane's scared yell, trying to block out the pain that was coursing through him. The relief of a curative spell washed over him, and he looked up as he heard footsteps approaching. He growled at the cackling of the jesters, even as he felt Vivi next to him. "You bastards!"

"Bastards, we may be, but clever are we." Drake thought for a moment, and realized that his bow must have been showing its wear for a good long time before he noticed it. The conditions he'd been going through hadn't helped matters any, either.

Muffled footsteps made Drake look up, though he flinched as blood got into his right eye, and he watched as Thorn took a nose-dive to the floor, courtesy of Marcus's fist to the back of his head. "Drake! You alright?" The archer blinked at the change of the dialogue, though he figured that being concerned for an injured friend took priority over making a sort of flashy entrance.

"How 'bout you, Zidane?" Drake stood carefully as he heard Blank's voice, and smiled as he turned to look at his friend, keeping his hand over his right eye even as Dagger tried to get him to move it to get a better look at his wound.

"Blank! You're worse than me at making people worry!" The redhead grinned and waved a hand at him as he stood over Zorn's unconscious body, and gestured towards his face, indicating Drake's recent wound.

"Not so sure of that. Anyway, we came straight from Evil Forest." Zidane shook his head, smiling with relief. They'd been expecting to be without any reinforcements, and they got them just as they were needed the most.

"Man, I love you guys!" Drake jumped a little as the gate between them and the Gargan Roo lowered with a loud clank, and tried to open his eye again, only to flinch once more.

"Zidane! Gargant downstairs! Get going!" Drake looked up to Marcus as he returned from flipping the lever, and turned his head to see Dagger pulling at his arm. He blinked his good eye at her as she helped him towards the stairs as Vivi scrambled in front of them.

"I owe you guys big-time!" Drake nearly stumbled as he went down the stairs, but didn't, thanks to Dagger helping him keep his balance. He could hear the sounds of battle distantly, echoing down the tower. It was sort of unneeded to warn them that enemies were on their way with that much noise.

Dagger let Drake rest against the wall as Zidane went around to try to activate the sequence to summon the gargant. The human man let the princess pull his hand away from his face so she could see the damage, seeing with his good eye how she flinched.

He knew that his eye itself wasn't damaged, but his eyebrow felt like it was split open. His forehead also was pretty ripped up, along with the segment under his eye. This injury probably looked a lot worse than it felt, though. Already it felt a little numb, thanks to the spell Dagger had already cast on him. The relief came again as Dagger cast another spell on him, and he closed his good eye with a slight sigh.

"Looks awful, doesn't it." An odd screeching sound made Drake open his eyes and look up again, and he blinked at the giant bug. It was a good deal uglier than he had thought it would be, looking at the sprite in the game. It had hairs peeking from between its plates, and the leather that held the gondola on it looked old and ill-cared for. "What is that?"

"It's a gargant, kupo!" Drake blinked, having completely forgotten about the moogle already. He looked at the creature, and sighed as he saw that it had managed to avoid getting any of his blood on it. "Before the airships were created, they were the main mode of transportation, kupo." The gargant stopped right in front of them, and the moogle dashed over to the gondola, jumping right in. Vivi and Dagger followed suit, as Drake pushed off of the wall.

Zidane caught him as he nearly fell, and Drake panted as the world spun, clenching his eyes closed tight, which he immediately felt was a mistake as his facial injuries reopened. He shook his head a little as Zidane practically dragged him over to the gondola, and sat down as soon as he could.

Relief washed over him and he opened his eyes to see Dagger sitting next to him, her eyes closed in concentration. The gondola jerked as the gargant started to move, and Drake managed to stop himself from falling into Dagger.

"Where are we going?" Drake was glad to see that Vivi was doing his best to stay distracted from Drake's injury, and he let his head sink, only to feel a gloved hand press against his forehead on the good side.

"Don't fall asleep." Drake sighed a little at Dagger's instructions, and did his best to follow them, forcing himself to pry his eyes open. Zidane had his eyes on him, obviously a bit worried for him.

"We're going to Treno. We'll stay there for the time being and try to figure out our next move." Drake knew that the chances of them actually making it to Treno was fairly slim, so long as things were moving according to the game. And so far, it had. He'd had the intention of killing one of the twins, which would have kept Kuja from doing something later on...

He had really lost a good deal of blood if he couldn't remember exactly what he had been thinking of keeping Kuja from doing later. Something to do with the fact that they were twins, he could remember that much.

Drake was suddenly thrown forwards as the gargant came to a sudden stop, and he caught himself on the floor, just inches away from smashing his face into the old wood. He heard the others' reactions, and carefully got a knee under him, adrenaline pumping through his veins to wake him up.

"That's-!" Drake wasn't able to see what had stopped the gargant, even as the other three hopped off to face it. He started to get up just before Zidane hopped off, only to have his brother pause to rest a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.

"Rest. Your balance is shot, and you can only see out of one eye. We'll take care of this." Drake sighed at that, mentally cursing his tendency to get injured so easily. It was something that he'd found out while he was settling in with the Tantalus troupe.

He had a myriad of tiny scars on his left hand from where he'd been cut by the fletching so often, and had never learned how to keep an ear out for when the Nero siblings were roughhousing. That had turned into several black eyes and bruises before Baku had simply told the brothers to keep an eye out for him instead of the other way around. He'd always healed quickly, though.

Fur against his skin distracted Drake from his thoughts as the moogle started to wrap bandages around his injured arm, and he sat on the floor of the gondola, feeling the whole thing sway as the gargant moved back and forth, wanting to move forward but afraid to. The motion didn't help Drake stay awake at all.

The yelling and sounds of battle that suddenly came to Drake's attention made him lift his head up just as a loud thud echoed through the dark tunnel. Afterwards, the only sounds were Drake's friends huffing and puffing. Dagger soon climbed back up into the gondola, and moved to his side, her hand gently touching the undamaged side of his forehead.

Vivi and Zidane came up next, and Zidane looked at Drake hard before looking up at the gargant as it started to move forwards again. Drake planted his bad arm to keep from falling over, and hissed slightly in pain. The moogle gently pushed on him to get him back so he wouldn't have his weight on his bad arm.

"It's moving again...But why is it going so slowly?" Drake blinked up at the gargant, noticing that it really was acting hesitant. He supposed that the tunnel monsters fed on the gargants, which would explain how long they were and their attacking techniques. "Hey, hurry up!" Drake groaned slightly and closed his eyes as Zidane yelled at the poor gargant. Dagger also seemed to be irritated at the talented thief.

"Don't yell at it. The poor thing must be scared to death." Drake felt another healing spell course through him, and realized it was only making him sleepy. The healing spells took some energy from the person being healed. Still, he could feel it knitting up the wound on his head.

"But it's..." Drake's eyes opened as he felt the gargant's pace increase, a confused look on his face. An amused chuckle from Zidane made him turn his head to look at the wall of the tunnel as they passed it. He spotted a couple of branching tunnels, and briefly wondered where they went. They didn't exist in the game, after all.

"See? It can go faster. Good job!" Drake grabbed onto the side of the gondola as Dagger turned to look behind them, still feeling the gargant's pace increase. Drake could barely hear the slithering of dry scales on stone over the chittering that the gargant was making.

"No, Zidane! Look!" Drake saw the princess point behind them, and knew that the tunnel monster was chasing them. He honestly couldn't remember the name of the darn thing. Zidane turned to look at what had alarmed Dagger, and swore under his breath, so that Vivi wouldn't hear him.

"Dammit, it's chasing us!" Drake had long since considered certain words as not being swear words. Especially after living with Baku for two years. That man could certainly swear the air blue. Drake had been rendered silent for about an hour or so after the first time he had angered Baku.

"We'll pass Treno if we don't stop soon!" Drake noticed that Vivi was clinging to the other side of the gondola, and turned his head to see the Treno station as they whipped past it.

"Was that it?" Zidane turned to look behind them to see what Drake was referring to, as Dagger grabbed one of the supports of the gondola to hang on as the gargant started to move onto weaving vines, probably trying to evade the monster.

"I think so...Dammit, we can't jump off at this speed. Especially with Drake hurt." Dagger gasped, facing forwards. Drake looked to where she was looking, and would have paled a little if he wasn't already pale from bloodloss. He hadn't been expecting to see the end of the tunnel so soon.

"Zidane, look!" The monkey-tailed thief turned to look, and swore loudly, apparently not caring whether Vivi heard now. "The tunnel!"

Zidane grabbed Vivi to make sure he stayed with them, grabbing onto the other gondola support, seeing that Drake had his bad arm wrapped around the shaking moogle as he hung onto the side of the gondola with all his remaining strength. "Hang on tight!"

Drake cringed as they erupted into the sunlight, and yelled as he felt the gondola breaking around him. The moogle jumped from his arm as he flipped in the air, landing hard on his injured arm. The pain from that impact, along with how hard his head hit the ground, rendered him immediately unconscious.

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"Is he alright, kupo?" Drake groaned slightly as he heard the distant voice, trying to claw his way back to the cooling darkness that eased the pounding of his head. The groan only made the ache worse.

"No. Look, he's bleeding!" A touch made him groan again, the aching only increasing. Why wouldn't the voices let him go back to the darkness? They only caused him pain.

"Did you find him?" This voice was even more distant than the other two. Drake moved his head slightly as if to look towards the voice, but the movement only caused more white-hot pain.

"Yeah. He's hurt bad. Looks like he got thrown off of the gondola. His arm's at an awkward angle, but I don't think it's broken. His head's bleeding, though, and he already had some bloodloss. Think you could toss the pack down? He's practically gonna need a bath of potions." Something fuzzy brushed Drake's face, and he realized that the pain was coming only from the back of his head.

A soft thump drifted to his ears, also sounding very distant. What sounded like it could have been movement followed, and then something ice-cold touched the white-hot heat of the pain. He couldn't help but try to move away from it, a grimace twisting his face ever so slightly.

"Keep him still, please. This needs to get sealed up before he loses any more blood." The pressure the fuzzy thing was putting on him increased, holding his head in place as the ice liquid again sizzled against the sun-hot part of his skull.

Eventually, it stopped, and a small but strong body picked him up and carried him a ways before carefully setting him down, being careful to keep from putting anything against the part of his head that still felt far too hot. Drake felt himself falling back towards the soothing darkness as a pair of fingers pressed gently against his neck to check his pulse. He didn't submerge completely, though, hearing everything distantly as all of his other senses became dulled.

"Drake...You just get hurt way too much. I've almost got a mind to find someplace where the queen won't go and leaving you there so you won't get hurt." The voice, which Drake finally pegged as being Zidane, sighed slightly, sounding a little annoyed. "Knowing you, though, you'll just find a way to get back to us...just when we need you the most. I can't deny that you've saved more lives than I can count. Everyone in Cleyra owes their lives to you, and who knows how many people from the Festival of the Hunt. If you weren't with us...I know for a fact that Cleyra would be no more. No one but you would have been able to do anything."

Drake forced himself to open his eyes, but they didn't open very much. All he could see past his eyelashes was a mass of green, which meant that Zidane wasn't on that side of him. A hand roughly moved his head, making him close his eyes again and groan, which got a chuckle from Zidane.

"Coming to finally, are you. Stay still, you hit your head really hard. I managed to get the injury to close up, but we've both heard a good deal about head injuries. Worse than they seem. I'm gonna go find Dagger and see if she can't do more for you." Drake groaned in response, about all that he could get himself to do. His head was resting on something firm but soft, so he figured that it was a moss-covered rock or something. "Hey moogle, can you stay here with him?" Drake's eyes opened again at the mention of the moogle, wondering at the creature.

He knew he'd been holding onto it when the gondola broke off of the gargant. He had been thrown off because he was too weak, and the moogle had jumped free of him. Vivi, Zidane, and Dagger had landed with the gondola, which, in the game, had simply been set on its side, though Dagger's reaction as she woke up suggested that they had landed roughly as well. He heard the cheery 'kupo' of the creature, and decided that the moogle at least wasn't hurt badly. Drake heard Zidane moving about and away, and closed his eyes, trying to ease the pounding that grew while his eyes were open.

"Mosh? What are you doing here? I thought you went to explore the Gargan Roo." Drake frowned at another soft moogle voice that was coming from above him, and wondered idly how far he'd been thrown. He could think better than he could in the tunnel, which meant that some of the blood he'd lost was getting replaced, but his head was still pretty fuzzy. "Eh? A Chosen, injured?" Drake opened his eyes at that, having to concentrate to un-cross his eyes.

"He was protecting me when the gargant crashed, kupo." The newer moogle moved closer to Drake, and gently pressed a paw to his forehead. "His friend was really worried about him. I think he's lost a lot of blood." Drake's eyes started to drift closed, despite how he was trying to fight it, knowing that it was a bad thing to fall asleep while with a concussion and blood loss.

"Worried for good reason. Sleep, Chosen. We'll keep you safe, and keep you alive." Drake chuckled slightly, mostly a curve of his lips as his eyes closed. "Mosh, could you go get my medicines? I think we need it here, kupo."

"Yessir, Monty!" Monty...that was the moogle from the Evil Forest, right? Drake had never met him. Only the main party had. Still, he seemed to be more mature than Mosh.

Distant voices kept Drake from falling asleep, which, while a good thing, annoyed him a little in his current state. He was exhausted from the bloodloss, and his concussion wasn't helping matters. Footsteps came, then, several sets.

"Drake! Oh, my goodness!" Drake forced his eyes to open as he heard the princess, his eyesight blurred for a moment before her face came into focus. She was kneeling next to him, and he could feel her mana weaving, though even that sense was blurred. Zidane was coming up behind her, keeping Vivi from falling down. "Cura!"

The relief washed over Drake, easing the deep ache in his skull. He sighed at that, and felt Dagger's hand on his forehead. He started to feel himself fall to sleep, now that the ache was no longer nagging at him. He didn't fully fall asleep, though, hovering somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness.

"He should be alright now. He just needs to rest and regain the blood he lost." Their voices were faint again, but not in the muffled way they were before. "Zidane, where are the rest?"

"I don't know...We're really far from Alexandria. Hey, don't worry. The Tantalus guys are with them, too. It's almost nightfall. They're probably in Treno by now." That's right, only earlier had they been fighting in Cleyra. He still had sand scattered in his hair. It had certainly been an eventful day.

"Do you think we can borrow an airship in Lindblum? Treno is only steps away if we can reach South Gate." Except, that gate likely wasn't repaired yet. The mountainside docks likely were still being repaired. Drake knew that there was a limit to how fast construction could take place. Of course, they'd also have to wait at least overnight for Drake to recover.

"Yeah..." A group of yelps came, one of the moogles bumping into Drake's head. This made the archer shift slightly, his eyes fluttering open. That action took too much energy, though, and he didn't see what had caused the others to yelp. "Who are you?" That was definitely a different reaction than Zidane had in the game. "H-hey! Get away from him!"

Drake had a moment to wonder what Zidane was talking about before he felt a warm, dry hand touch his forehead. Peace seemed to wash through his mind, and he slipped back into the mostly-unconscious state. The sensation reminded him of when Maria touched his hand as she handed him the Stellazio. Ramuh was a constellato?

"Enemy or ally...that is up to you. As for this Chosen...he need not fear further injury from me." Ramuh's voice was a good deal clearer to Drake's mind, though even that was fading. "My name is Ramuh."

"I've heard your name somewhere...Ah! I've seen your name in a book I read about summoning magic! You must be Ramuh, the Thunder God." Dagger sounded pretty excited at this, though she also sounded a little apprehensive as well. Drake could tell that Ramuh hadn't moved from next to him, though.

"...Do you know how close your summon magic came to destroying my sister, the Constellato Cleyra?" Drake shifted slightly, only to be calmed by Ramuh's hand on his forehead again. "An eidolon follows its summoner's orders. It responded to the orders of a woman filled with greed this time. It is thanks to this young man that the settlement yet survives."

"No...Mother...! I can't believe it...I was confined during that attack." Drake found himself slipping into true sleep finally, likely because of Ramuh's influence.

"It wasn't your fault, Dagger..." Zidane's voice finally faded into incomprehensible mumbling as the darkness of rest blanked out Drake's thoughts as well as the rest of the world. The moogles had stayed near him, Mosh's fluffy fur tickling the side of his temples.

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Drake woke up slowly, feeling his head sufficiently well enough, and rolled over onto his side before opening his eyes. At some point, someone must have moved him, as he was now inside a cave created by the roots of a tree. He turned his head to look up at the ceiling before he sat up, making sure that he wouldn't hit his head like he had in Cleyra.

"Kupo! Are you sure you should be up?" Drake turned his attention to the moogle that walked into the entrance, and blinked for a moment. This moogle was a bit older, with a small beard-like tuft of fur on what likely could pass as a chin. "You were delirious for part of the night." Drake rubbed at his head, and grimaced at the sensation of caked hair.

"My balance is fine, and I don't feel lightheaded. I figure I'm fine." The archer held his left arm in front of him, looking at the marks that now spread across his forearm. "It looks like I might have a few new scars, though." The moogle smiled a bit as he handed Drake a wooden cup with water in it.

"I did my best to keep the scarring to a minimum, kupo. Your face doesn't have any, though I wouldn't be surprised if you had a bit of one under your hair. Your arm was healing already by the time I got to it, though, kupo." Drake nodded and swallowed the water he was handed, folding his legs in front of him.

"There a place where I can wash off nearby? I'm afraid I don't like the sensation of my hair sticking to my head." The moogle's eyes smiled, and one furry paw pointed out the door.

"There's a waterfall nearby. You can use that to clean off." Drake nodded his thanks and got his feet under himself, having to lean forwards to keep from bumping his head. He stretched once he was out of Monty's home, his back tensing and then relaxing as his arms dropped.

"Drake!" The archer turned to look at Zidane as the monkey-tailed man dropped from a branch above him. "Are you alright? You look like death warmed over." Drake allowed a wry smile to cross his face, and ran his hand over the back of his head.

"Felt a bit better, but definitely not nearly as bad as I felt in Burmecia. The moogle in there apparently gave me something that healed me up." Zidane tilted his head to the side and lifted an eyebrow, until Drake gestured towards his face. "By all rights, I should have at least a small scar on my face, over my eye. I don't, though."

Zidane leaned forwards to peer at his brother's face, his eyes squinting just a little. Drake ran his fingers over his face, and blinked as he realized that he had dried blood all over his face. Really, no one had cleaned him up while he was out cold.

"Well, it's hard to tell right now, I guess." Drake grinned wide, and walked down the branch to the flooded area, and then found the waterfall that Monty had mentioned. He double-checked to make sure that his armor wasn't on him, and blinked as he realized that pretty much all of it had been removed while he was unconscious. "Not exactly comfortable to wear at night, after all...makes a bit of sense." He shook his head as he spoke to himself, and stepped under the water, lifting a hand to block a good deal of the water from hitting his eyes.

The shock of the cold water made the archer gasp a little and shiver, even as he felt his hair loosening up. He pulled off the ragged shirt once he felt that it was loose from his body, and threw it to the side, followed by his boots, belt, and socks. He rubbed at his face and slicked his hair back as he stepped out from under the water for a moment, blowing water away from his nose and mouth with a huff, his eyes still closed.

"A-ah!" Drake hurriedly wiped water from his eyes as he heard someone yelp, and blinked at the source. Dagger had her gloved hands over her mouth as she stared at him, her face bright red. Drake blinked at her for a moment before realizing that he didn't have a shirt on. To a princess, that likely was a big fuss. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't..." Drake smiled and shook his head, wiping water from his ear.

"It's no problem. I was just washing off the dried blood. And before you ask, yes, I'm feeling much better." Drake couldn't help but chuckle at the look on Dagger's face, and waded over to where he'd thrown his soaked things, enjoying feeling the sun on his back, which he knew was fairly pale from him wearing his shirt constantly in Cleyra.

"B-but-!" Drake ruffled his hair, sending water flying all over the place, and sat down on the branch up to Monty's dwelling. "Ah! Your arm!" Drake lifted his arm to look at his forearm, seeing the scar a good deal clearer than before. Fortunately, all of it was easily hidden by a bracer.

"Yeah, the moogle told me that this would happen. Said that I wouldn't get a scar on my face, though. 'Course, I can't look to see it, myself." Drake grunted a little as a cloth was dropped on his head, and lifted his left hand to pull it off so he could look up. Zidane was nearby, and waved at him. Drake then looked at the cloth that had been thrown to him, and found it was a towel.

"Bring your wet things up here, Drake, Monty's got a clothesline for travelers." Drake tilted his head to the side to show his confusion, even though he already knew the moogle's name. "The moogle that watched over you last night. He's pretty much a traveler's best friend. Migren, the moogle that helped us on our way to the grotto? She's his granddaughter." Drake blinked at that.

Regardless, he stood and rubbed his head with the towel, picking up his wet things and making his way up the branch, smiling and nodding amiably to Dagger as he passed her. He couldn't help but note that she was still blushing bright red. He supposed that the attraction that so many people commented on worked on royalty as well.

"So, Drake, you feel up to traveling?" Drake sighed a little at Zidane's question as he draped his socks and shirt over the clothesline and hung his boots upside down. He knew from long ago that that was the best way to get shoes dry. "Eh? Never seen you do that before." Drake blinked at Zidane and then looked at what his brother was looking at: his boots.

"They dry faster this way. The water drains out the way it came in. Anyway, so long as my things dry, I should be good to go by noon." Drake ruffled his hair again, looking towards the far-off Lindblum Castle, just barely visible beyond the labrynth of roots and branches. "I'm a bit worried about those three knights. Even that woman general, Beatrix." Zidane nodded to Drake, and also looked towards Lindblum.

"I don't doubt that they can take care of themselves, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth to leave them behind. Besides, we need to get you a new bow." Drake winced at that reminder, and his left forearm twinged in a reminder that his skin might have been mended, but the muscle underneath still was injured. He draped his towel over his head and grabbed his arm subtly, his face tensing a bit at the pain. "Hey, what's wrong?" Drake forced himself to relax, though his hand didn't relax on his injured arm.

"My arm just spasmed. I don't think it's fully healed." Drake kept his voice low, not wanting Dagger to overhear and worry. "I should be able to still travel, though. Just wouldn't be able to fight." Zidane frowned at Drake and took a closer look at his brother's arm, gently moving the archer's hand.

"Hey Dagger, I think Drake needs another curative spell." Drake grumbled under his breath at Zidane, and rolled his eyes as the princess scurried over to apply the spell, much to the archer's chagrin.

"I was hoping to keep from causing more of a fuss." Zidane smirked a little at Drake as the cool wash of healing magic washed over his arm. The princess also smiled a little, though her face remained a very bright red.

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_End notes_: I actually sort of enjoyed this chapter, because I got to do something many authors don't do to their characters: leave them completely weaponless. And I know Drake gets hurt a lot. He's an archer, which many enemies see as being dangerous, as they can't (the way I'm writing them, at least) hit them, while the archers can hit them. So it makes sense that monsters and enemies are targeting him.

Enjoy and reveiw, please! (I know there are people watching this story. I see the alerts.)


	6. Rubble

**Authoress' note:** Okay, wow, it took me longer than I expected to get to this chapter. I apologize. I have a tendency to leave one chapter finished but not uploaded, to give me more time to look over it and see if there are any issues with the plot. The chapter I just finished working on, the one after this, was like pulling teeth to write. I hope that it doesn't end up being obvious.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise. That belongs to Squeenix, whom I have no affilation to.

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Chapter 6: Rubble

The Chosen of Lindblum knew that there was nothing that he could do to stop the destruction of his city.

Drake stared at Lindblum from the perch he had found, keeping his left arm on the cliff face the root he was standing on sprouted out of. His face was serious, even as he watched Zidane and Dagger make a futile dash towards the city, his eyes on the Red Rose. The airship had gone by not long after Dagger had mended the muscle in his forearm back together, headed for Lindblum.

"...Peace, lad." Drake turned his head a little to see the apparition of Ramuh floating just behind him. "Revenge-"

"Is not the path a Chosen takes. I know this." Drake took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment as the wind blew into his face. "A Chosen is a leader of the people, whether of their vocation or city or not. And leaders cannot afford to be overwhelmed by vengeance." It didn't mean that Drake didn't want to burn all of Alexandria for destroying his city, though. He simply knew that he couldn't, as clearly as he knew his role in saving Gaia lay securely in supporting Zidane and Garnet.

"It seems that we Constellato underestimated how strong your wit is. You know what you must do?" Drake's eyes opened then, settling on the new Lindblum as Atomos faded, having been unable to watch the attack.

"Yes. Dagger and Vivi are unable to wander around the city as it is now, and Zidane must stay behind to watch over them. I am the only one who can find the way to the regent." Drake heard Ramuh's chuckle, which faded as he returned to his natural state.

Drake dropped down to the path down to Lindblum, and walked to where Zidane was comforting Dagger. Vivi seemed to be shaking as well, likely in shock. Drake set a gentle hand on Vivi's shoulder, which made the boy jump and look up at him. A small, sad smile crossed Drake's face. Zidane turned to see what had made Vivi yelp, and Drake's expression grew serious again.

"Zidane, I'm going ahead. I'm going to find a safe path into Lindblum for Dagger and Vivi. They shouldn't be seen walking in the front gate. So long as no soldiers that saw my face in Burmecia see me, I should be fine." Zidane's face tightened, and Drake smirked slightly, spreading his arms. "Besides, they'll be looking for an archer, not an unarmed civilian. My only worry will be getting to Lindblum unharmed." Drake and Zidane both looked up towards the sky as a Trick Sparrow went overhead.

"You've grown more agile since the Hunt. You should be fine. You better think of a way to let us know you've found a way in." Drake grinned lopsidedly, and smushed Vivi's hat before waving and trotting off towards Lindblum at an easy pace.

Very few monsters took notice of him as he ran across the plateau, thanks to the fact that his metal feather was tucked inside his pouch. A runner's high soon set in, making Drake smile slightly even though he was running towards the ruined city he now called home. Or perhaps he was wanting to start the restoration process already.

Drake slowed to a walk as he reached the gates of Lindblum, and mingled with the crowd of terrified people that had moved out of the city itself to escape falling debris. One old man caught Drake's attention, and he lifted an eyebrow as he wove through the crowd to gently set his hand on the elder's shoulder.

"Locke..." The old man turned his head to face the archer, his face serious. "What's happening?" The old thief glanced about for a moment to make sure that no one was listening to them. He then adjusted the slightly faded blue bandanna he wore over his forehead still, sighing wearily.

"Alexandria attacked without warning. This huge...thing just started to suck parts of the city into itself. I...I think the Industrial district's completely gone." Drake's face grew stern. The Industrial district was the uppermost district, so that the fumes that the machines cause wouldn't stink up the rest of the city.

"What about the Garden District?" That was one district that was already so run-down that it didn't need an attack. Locke looked furtively about, and tugged on Drake's arm, following the small trickle of people along the edge of the wall.

"Still intact, I think. Only the people who live in the district know of this entrance." Locke kept his voice low, his gait changing from an old man to a veteran fighter. "Y'never told me you were a Chosen, lad." Drake chuckled wryly at his old friend's slight accusatory tone.

"I only became one recently. Just before the Hunt, actually. Have you any word of the Regent?" Locke had been the one to teach Drake the ways of the city, showing him the backways and shortcuts of the various districts. He'd offered to show Drake around the Garden District, but the archer had turned down his generous offer.

"Aye, that makes sense now. I thought it was odd you improved so quickly. Heard your name praised to the skies amongst the flowers afterwards, though. The soldiers that are assigned to keep order in the Garden District were well thinned, and replaced by those who have grown to care for us." Locke shook his head wryly, his lined, tanned face creased in a broad smile.

"I'm glad to hear it. I was going to speak to their commander himself if I came back and nothing had been done. I'm sure that my position as Master Hunter would have at least _some_ sway. If not..." Drake went silent as they passed a singed guard, who was looking over everyone. He noticed that everyone else had, as well. The murmuring started up again only once people were past him.

"They've been given orders to look out for you and the others," Locke whispered to Drake, leaning on his arm as if the younger man was simply helping him to walk. "He's one of the kinder guards, though, and the only one assigned to this entrance." A plan started to form in Drake's head as they entered the Garden District, which had a few plants uprooted and a few loose shingles missing from the houses, but otherwise was unharmed.

"Come, this way." Drake turned his head to see the aircab driver he'd befriended standing just in an alleyway, gesturing towards them. Locke directed the archer to follow him, glancing down the street, where more soldiers were looking over the large crowd of people trying to make sense of what had happened. "You've a tendency to appear when you're most needed, lad. We were just wondering where Lindblum's Chosen was." Drake smiled slightly as he was led down a hatch to someone's cellar, not feeling at all afraid of walking into the pitch black below.

The hatch was closed, and a lantern was lit. Drake flinched a little at the sudden light, but looked around once his eyes had adjusted, not at all surprised to see barrels of some sort of alcohol sitting along one wall of the basement. There was a trapdoor leading up somewhere, and what looked like a few cots. All in all, it was much cleaner than a person would expect from a cellar in the Garden District.

"You can stay here for the time being. I'll tell you if my eyes and ears find anything interesting." Drake turned to look at Locke, still thinking.

"Would it be feasible to bring Zidane and two friends in from the plateau tonight? I don't think it'd be safe for them out there." Locke paused at Drake's question, looking thoughtful. Drake crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side, waiting for the elder's answer.

"I don't see why not. The cover of darkness should hide them. And perhaps I can get you a new bow, yes? By the looks of your arm, your last one shattered while you were trying to use it." Drake threw his gaze down to his left arm, the fresh scar glinting against his skin in the lantern light.

"Yes. I'm lucky that the wound on my face didn't scar as well." Locke's eyes widened at that comment, and Drake uncrossed his arms to gently touch over his left eye. "Having a moogle tend to you has interesting side effects, it seems." Locke chuckled slightly as the aircab driver climbed the ladder from the trapdoor. By the sounds that Drake could hear, above was one of the more popular taverns in this district.

"There's a man in this district who's spent his whole life making bows. I'll see if I can't convince him to give you one." Drake smiled as Locke started towards the hatch, and moved over to one of the cloth-covered ledges that he supposed could act as a bed in a pinch.

The lantern flickered suddenly, and Drake sat up as he suddenly noticed a figure appear, feeling his heart skip a beat at the sudden surprise. The woman smiled at him and sat on the table the lantern rested on. Drake simply stared at her for a moment, feeling more at peace than he had for a while. It seemed that the woman knew that as well, simply waiting for him to speak first.

Her shoulder-length purple hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her skin was cleaned and pale, unlike how he'd seen her last. She wore a clean linen shirt under a brown leather vest, and a long leather bracer that went all the way up to her elbow. She had black trousers tucked into leather boots that looked like she'd been walking in the Garden District. Her purple eyes smiled at him as he stared at her.

"...Was I right, to go with them?" Drake's voice was soft, and he looked weary. He hadn't worried about whether he'd done the right thing while with Zidane and the others, but that was mostly because he hadn't had the time to do so. While in Cleyra, he'd spent all of his time training the archers there. He hadn't had any time to even let his guard down before or after that.

"Do you truly doubt it? Had you not gone with them, my sister Cleyra would be greatly weakened, and a promising man would yet be convinced that he was destined for another path." Drake closed his eyes at the Constellato's words, his shoulders drooping. "Had you been here, you likely would have been killed, my dear boy. The attack was so sudden that there was nothing that even I could do." Drake opened his eyes to look at Maria as she moved to sit next to him.

"But have I caused more destruction to my home city by protecting the cities of others...? The Alexandrians know that Lindblum is the city of archers, and I stopped the summoning over Cleyra with an arrow." Maria smiled and brushed a little of Drake's hair out of the way of his face, like a mother would with a child.

"What has occurred cannot be changed. Do not fret over that. Look only to the future." Drake closed his eyes as the Constellato's presence faded, and took a deep breath.

Drake hadn't been able to get much of a look around the city yet, but he had managed to get in, thanks to the people he knew. Locke was the old spymaster of Regent Cid, though Drake was fairly sure he'd been replaced years ago. Drake had met him because he was running an errand for Baku shortly after having been found, and had impressed him by his detail recall.

Locke had challenged Drake to remember what the driver of the aircab he'd just gotten off of looked like, and the then-harmless young man had thought for a moment before answering. He'd even been able to give a rough summary of what the driver had been chattering on about, even though he hadn't really been paying attention. He had been staring out the window that entire time, just absorbing what the city looked like.

"Lad." Drake woke with a start as he heard Locke's voice, and sat up with a yawn, cracking his back. He blinked at the old man for a moment before his eyes slid to the slip of paper that he was being offered.

Locke looked a bit stern and irritated, and Drake understood the moment he read the message. The Chosen rubbed his hand over his eyes and sighed slightly, waking up a bit more. A flask was offered to him, and Drake took a sip before he thought about what might have been in it, and coughed as he felt the liquid burn going down his throat.

A work-roughened hand patted Drake's back as he leaned over, coughing hard. He hadn't inhaled the liquid, but it hurt his throat a good deal. Finally, the spasms in his throat stopped, and he simply breathed, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Have you never drunk before, lad?" Drake tilted his head to look up at Locke's question, and flicked his eyes to the flask, which was once again in the old man's hand. "It's firewater, sure, but it's not the strongest available." Drake shook his head once he knew what Locke had asked, and coughed slightly before sitting up again.

"I've tried to avoid doing so. I don't need my mind fogged up." Locke nodded to him, and capped the flask before putting it back on his belt. "Can't say that it didn't make me wake up faster, though." Drake pushed himself up to a stand, and tilted his head from side to side.

"I'll lead you to the craftsman, then." Drake nodded, and tucked the note into his pocket. He could understand why the man wanted to meet the person who claimed to be the Chosen of Lindblum face-to-face, but it was a bit annoying, due to the state of the city.

Drake blinked at the tan cloak that was offered to him, and shrugged a bit before pulling it on, lowering the hood like a traveler would wear it. It was dusty and a bit battered, but no one really looked at travelers when there was a lot going on. It was the best disguise at this time.

As expected, no one noticed the man in a cloak as he walked through the street, several paces behind his guide so it wasn't as obvious that they were together. No one really even bumped into him, likely assuming that he had a dagger or something. He nearly lost the old man on occasion, but soon found him kneeling and speaking with someone who was a refugee from another district. Those were easy to pick out, as they all looked shell-shocked and frightened.

After about half an hour of walking, Drake saw Locke duck into a fair-sized building complex, and paused across the street, pulling the scrap of paper out of his pocket as if checking it for an address. The buildings here actually had numbers, after all. It was a nicer part of the Garden District, right on the edges of it.

"Looking for something, sir?" Drake turned his head to look at the young woman that had spoken to him, the hood shifting to show one of his gray eyes. The woman, who had simply been wondering what a traveler was doing in this district, suddenly became immediately fascinated by him, tilting her head to look under his hood.

"I'm looking for a certain craftsman. I'm an archer." The woman perked up as she heard that, smiling widely. She gestured towards a little alleyway next to the house that Locke had walked into.

"Oh, you must be looking for my grandfather, then! Come on, then. I'll lead you to him." Drake blinked at the young woman, but followed her anyway, tucking the scrap of paper away. The alleyway led to a courtyard where an old man was working at a bow. "Grandfather! You have a visitor!" Drake glanced about before lowering the hood of his cloak, smiling at Locke as his old friend leaned against the wall.

"I was wondering if you were going to simply follow me, lad. Turns out I didn't have to worry." Drake smirked a little at his friend, noticing that the old archer was eyeing him as he wound some sort of fiber around a horn and wood bow frame. "Andreas, this is the lad I told you was looking for a good bow." Drake shifted a little as the old man kept at his task, staying silent until he was done painting glue all over the fibers.

"So you're the young man that Lady Maria chose." Drake blinked at the honorific that the old man used, and sat on the bench that the elder gestured to. Without being asked, he pulled his Stellazio from his pouch and set it in the old man's outstretched hand, allowing him to inspect it.

Drake felt like he was speaking to the father of his Senior Prom date, with the way this old man was eyeing him. Not that he had even gone to prom when he was still on Earth, but still, he knew the feeling. Cass's father had given him the same look when he had first started dating her.

The old man turned the metal feather over in his hand, closing one eye to peer at where Drake knew the inscription was. Drake soon got tired of the cloak and took it off, carefully folding it and setting it next to him, revealing his scar on his left forearm and the quivers on his belt and the one across his back. Andreas' granddaughter went into the house that sheltered the courtyard, saying something about getting tea for the guests.

"You are indeed the Chosen of Lindblum. Lady Maria came to me a couple of months ago and told me that she was going to choose a new bearer of the Stellazio, and that she wished for me, as one of her past Chosen, to create a bow." Drake blinked at this news. This old man had once been a Chosen? He understood, then, the sort of thing that Drake had been going through, with hearing Maria's voice in his head while he was trying to do something at the very edge of his abilities.

"Here's the tea! I hope you don't mind, our tea leaves aren't exactly fresh..." Drake turned his head to look at Andreas' granddaughter, and accepted the cup she handed to him with a slight smile before she handed a cup to her grandfather and Locke, who was smirking to himself. Drake couldn't quite figure out why.

"Alexia, lass, had you asked, I'd have told you that there's a fresher tin in the basement." Alexia, the girl, flushed pink with embarrassment, and tried to stammer out an apology to her grandfather, who simply waved a hand, a small smile on his face. Drake could tell that he was truly fond of his granddaughter. "Ah, it's no harm done. That tin needed to get finished off, anyhow. Lad, what's your name?" Drake blinked as the attention was on him again.

"Drake Kyle, of the Tantalus Acting Troupe." Andreas lifted an eyebrow at the information of what group he belonged to, and tossed Drake an old bow. Drake caught it with ease, and then caught the Stellazio that was tossed to him afterwards. Drake tucked the feather into his vest, next to his heart, like normal.

"I want to see how good you are with a bow, Drake. Behind me's a target. I want you to hit it." Drake lifted an eyebrow at the challenge, and leaned to one side to see the target. It was at an angle, which made Drake smirk a little.

The trick to the shot Andreas had just challenged him to was to arc the shot, but the angle had to be so shallow that the arrow would just barely miss the old man's head. It was a test of nerves. The bow that Andreas had tossed to Drake looked to be in about as poor condition as his old bow just before it snapped on him, which was also a test of his nerves, especially seeing Drake's left forearm.

Drake pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back and nocked it, taking a deep breath as he pulled the string back. He could feel that the bow was well-made, simply by the tension of the string. It was a little stronger than he liked, but it wasn't something he couldn't handle. Drake aimed the arrow at Andreas and then lifted the arrowhead a little before releasing, feeling that he would hit his target. It was a simple shot, after all.

As Drake watched, the arrow gently ruffled Andreas' hair before dipping out of sight behind his head. The satisfying sound of the arrow striking the straw target came, and Drake let his lips curve for just a moment. Alexia breathed a sigh of relief, and Locke lifted an eyebrow, apparently having not expected Drake to take the challenge in such stride.

"Hardly a moment of hesitation. You have the confidence." Drake smiled slightly, knowing that wasn't praise, but rather an evaluation. "And without the arrogance that a lesser archer would show. You also have the strength to manage my bows." Andreas stood with a slight grunt and turned to look at the target. Drake blinked, a little startled that he'd hit the target dead center. "And the accuracy to make the strikes needed of a sniper."

Drake rubbed at the back of his head as Andreas moved to the target and pulled his arrow out of the straw. He felt like he was going through a serious exam, and all he had done was shoot an arrow. The old archer looked over the arrow, looking closely at the fletching and the string he had tied to keep the feathers in place. Locke covered a yawn, turning his mug of tea idly in his hands.

"You could use some work on making your arrows, though. This glue isn't very good." Drake blinked at Andreas as he had finally found something to complain about, and rubbed at his left arm. "And it seems your arm isn't healed yet from that injury. Recent, was it?" Drake nodded, and set the old bow down.

"Just yesterday. I was lucky to be traveling with a healer. And the glue that I used was the only one I had available to me. Zu spit." Andreas hummed as he looked over the arrow again, and gestured to his granddaughter. She nodded and disappeared into the house again.

"Zu...They live in the Cleyra area, yes? What were you doing there?" Drake accepted the arrow that Andreas handed back to him, and slid it back into his quiver before capping it again.

"Fighting the Alexandrians. While in Burmecia, my friends and I overheard talk of the tree settlement being their next target. We..._I_ managed to make a difference." Andreas lifted an eyebrow at him, gesturing for him to explain. "The queen of Alexandria had a summon that she was going to use to destroy Cleyra. I was able to make it onto her ship, and shot the stone she was using for the summon out of her hand." Andreas lifted an eyebrow, intrigued, as his granddaughter returned, a tub of some sort held in her hands.

"I remember when the Red Rose was built. The only angle to make a shot at the rear balcony is from the side, near to the galley cannons. You were in the air when you made the shot?" Drake nodded, and blinked at Alexia as she started to smooth some sort of salve over his scar, feeling a tingling set into his skin where it was. "You must have had to deal with the winds from the sandstorm." Drake shook his head.

"The sandstorm was killed. I'm still not sure how, but I think magic was involved." Andreas' slight smile faded completely, and he straightened, looking dead serious. "The Constellato Cleyra said that it'd never happened before. The air around her tree was still."

"Stilled to allow the ship to attack." Drake nodded, but had a wry smile on his face. "You mentioned nothing of fire, though." The wry smile increased slightly.

"My friend is a mage. I helped him to take out the cannons." Andreas looked at Drake sharply as Alexia finished with the salve and capped the tin.

"How?" Drake tilted his head as Alexia moved away, and sat down, resting his heel on the bench and his right elbow on his knee. He thought for a moment, closing his eyes to try to remember exactly what he did when he helped Vivi.

"I...I'm not sure. One moment I was kneeling next to him, the next, I was looking out his eyes." Andreas frowned, looking bemused. "It worked, though. His spells damaged the cannons too much to fire on Cleyra." Locke cleared his throat, drawing the attention back to him.

"I managed to get a look at the Red Rose as it entered the city. It was charred pretty badly. I'm fairly sure that it was headed to the maintenance hangar." Drake glanced towards the castle, through the haze and smoke of the attack.

"Probably going to stay docked there until it's fixed. As if the engineers haven't gone through enough." An idea came to Drake, and he perked suddenly, his eyes widening for a moment, still focused on the castle.

Andreas' chuckle made Drake look at him, lifting an eyebrow at the elder. Alexia had disappeared into the house again, likely to put the tin away. Locke was also looking at Drake expectantly, having apparently noted the look on Drake's face.

"I recognize that look. You've had that one many a time, Andreas. What's the idea you've got, lad?" Drake rubbed the back of his head as he tried to sort his ideas out in his head, a smile starting to work his way across his lips.

"I suppose the engineers are being forced to work on the Red Rose under threat of violence. Suppose they...found some extra things that needed fixing?" Drake grinned as Locke's eyes lit up at the idea, his weathered face slowly spreading into a grin.

"Returning what ill the Alexandrians have rained on us? I can see many a man agreeing to that. What other ideas might you have?" Drake crossed his arms, and then blinked at his left arm as he realized that it didn't even ache.

"Find what supplies they are taking, and ruin them. Ensure that none of the saboteurs are captured, though." Locke nodded at that, not needing to be told why. A trail leading to the rebellion leader or someone close to him was exactly what an occupying army wanted. "Perhaps making their living conditions miserable would help. Locke, I leave the decisions of exactly what do to in your hands. You have more of a sense of delicacy in this matter than I do." Andreas simply continued to chuckle, even as Alexia came back.

"You are truly a leader, even amongst Chosen." Drake blinked at Andreas as Locke pulled a face. "Locke here was once the Chosen of Esto Gaza." Drake looked confused for a moment, and narrowed his eyes a little, trying to figure out which 'job class' Locke could be considered.

"That was a good long time ago. That young lad in the desert has the coin now, and his brother has the claw of Dali." Drake frowned, looking even more confused. The two elders laughed at the look on his face.

"The Chosen of Esto Gaza holds a profession similar to your monkey-tailed friend. The Chosen of Dali is a strong individual, able to move even large boulders with ease. It's very rare that a Chosen is related to another, and these two are brothers." Drake blinked, and tilted his head to the side.

"A thief and a monk? Where do they live?" Andreas and Locke exchanged looks, small smiles on their faces. Drake was definitely interested in what they had to say, wanting to glean some wisdom from the Chosen before him.

"According to Lady Maria, another continent. One's the heir to a desert kingdom, I think." Drake blinked, wondering why it sounded so familiar. He made a mental note to think about it later, when he didn't have an occupying army to worry about. "Alexia, lass, be a dear and go fetch my old armor, would you? Drake's a bit thinner than I used to be, but t'wouldn't be a problem for old Torres to make it fit." Drake blinked, looking startled.

"You're sure, Andreas? Your wife made it for you years ago, after all." Andreas chuckled a little and started to move towards the locked hutch on the side of the house, pulling a key from within a sleeve.

"Quite sure. She wouldn't want her handiwork to go to waste. Just as I don't want mine to. Drake, come here." Drake blinked at the old Chosen and walked over to him, rubbing his right hand on his forehead before rolling his hand in a circle, cracking his wrist despite the glove restricting the movement of that hand.

Andreas handed Drake a composite bow, already strung. Drake's eyebrows lifted at the simple elegance of the object, running his hands over it. He noted the green and yellow beads hanging from one end, along with a small wooden feather charm. The wood didn't look like it had a covering, from a distance, but Drake could see up close the tinges of white, yellow, red, and blue across the deep mahogany wood. Only the grain of the wood wound around the bow, not straight from one tip to the other. The fiber that had been wrapped around the bow was some sort of wood, but it wasn't a veneer, like he had been sort of expecting. The leather grip molded into his bare hand perfectly, a welcome sensation after the formless grip of his old bow.

"This...is beautiful." The reverent tone in Drake's voice made both of the older men smile. His gloved hand slid up one arm of the bow, the weapon tilted just right to catch the fading sunlight.

"It's the best bow I've ever made, lad, and likely the best I ever will make. Never have I worked with such quality materials as Lady Maria gave me." Drake blinked at that, and looked over the bow again.

"Grandfather, I could tailor the armor for him quickly enough." Drake glanced over his shoulder as Alexia returned, but his eyes went back to his new bow soon enough. He moved well out of the way of the others, uncapping his quiver. As the other three watched, he drew an arrow and nocked it to his bow, pulling the bowstring back. He frowned a little as the strength of the bow challenged the strength of his arms, but released the arrow. He blinked at the target as he saw that only the fletching was sticking out.

"A great deal stronger than any other bow I've used." Drake capped his quiver again as he turned to look at Alexia, who was staring at him with wide eyes and dropped jaw. He lifted an eyebrow at her, and looked at the leather in her arms.

"I-it took grandpa and my daddy both just to string that bow! Yet you can draw it and use it with only a small amount of strain!" Drake smiled humbly and scratched idly at the back of his head.

"He's also yet to hit his prime, Alexia. Your father and I are both well past ours." Drake blinked at Andreas, and went to sit down by his cloak, frowning as his body reminded him that he had lost a good deal of blood recently. "Though by the looks of him, he's prone to getting injured." Drake chuckled, a lopsided smile on his face.

"More than prone. I've started to think that my subconscious is out to get me killed." Andreas threw his head back and laughed at that as Locke chortled. Drake took this reaction as being normal for a Chosen.

"There's an effect that the Stellazio have on the creatures of the Mist...," Locke started, grinning.

"It causes them to see me as a priority target. I know, the Antlion that protects Cleyra decided to go berserk while I was there, and decided to try to smash me into oblivion." Locke lifted an eyebrow, but looked concerned at Drake's short tale. "We only injured it. The settlement still can claim it as a guardian." Andreas wiped tears of laughter from his eyes, and gestured to his granddaughter to bring him his old armor so he could look through it.

"I had the same problem when I was young, lad. It's the archer's curse. Unlike a mage, our arrows are best at a range, and many try to take advantage of it." Drake blinked as Andreas peered intently at him for a moment, ignoring the pile of leather now in his lap. "And you have not been long exposed to war, have you?" Drake shook his head, the smile gone from his face, as it normally did when this subject was brought up.

Locke and Andreas exchanged glances at this sudden change in the young Chosen, and Andreas nodded to Locke, looking to the leather in his lap now. Locke walked over to Drake and gestured slightly for him to follow. Alexia looked between her grandfather and the other two men in the courtyard, looking confused and a bit worried. She was apparently used to Locke acting this way, though, as she didn't object when Locke led Drake into the house proper.

"How are you holding up?" Drake blinked at Locke's sudden question, and sat on the stool in front of the hearth. He thought a little while, rubbing his thumb over the scar on his left forearm.

"Much better than I had in Burmecia. I don't feel ill when I think about what I did there, anymore. I don't like it, but it's not something that I can't think about at all." Drake ran his fingers through his hair and glanced out the window. "I had a pretty bad case of shock while still in Gizamaluke's Grotto." He closed his eyes and sighed, seeming to be exhausted.

"Have you dreamt of it at all?" Drake blinked up at Locke as the older man leaned against the wall next to the hearth, looking serious. Drake couldn't help but think of him as a father figure. The archer shook his head, took a deep breath, and sat up.

"I haven't been dreaming much, to be honest. I took some sleeping weed the first couple of days, but I haven't used it otherwise." Locke looked at Drake levelly for a moment before nodding, showing his approval.

"Wise choice. The first few nights are the worst. You've been keeping busy otherwise, yes?" Drake nodded, and closed his eyes once more.

"My days in Cleyra were spent training the group of archers there, and ensuring that everyone was ready to battle at a moment's notice." Locke chuckled a little at Drake's exasperated tone.

"Still not used to being seen as a leader, I take it." Drake shook his head to Locke's comment, and stood, unable to sit still. "Sit, Drake." The young man stared at Locke for a moment, silently daring him to force him to. "Sit. The sun won't have set on the rest of the city for another two hours."

Drake set his jaw, and Locke sighed before planting a hand on the younger man's shoulder, forcing him to sit down. Drake growled under his breath at the older man, and received a cuff on the ear for it. Drake glared up at him, rubbing his stinging ear.

"You're still reacting to what you went through, Drake." The archer frowned a little, just wishing Locke would drop the subject. "Trying to keep so busy you don't think about it...It isn't healthy. You'll work yourself till you burn out, like that." Drake huffed and looked away from Locke. He didn't see the slight smile on the older man's face.

A hand on top of Drake's head made him grunt and swat it away, unconsciously acting like his old self, from long before he had been whisked away to Gaia. His birth father had acted like this on occasion, particularly when Drake was upset at him. The sense of that nostalgia seeped through to his consciousness, and the archer sighed, closing his eyes as his muscles finally relaxed.

"Y'grew up too fast, lad." Drake opened an eye to look up at Locke, quirking an eyebrow slightly. "You were like a kid when I first met you. Next thing I know, you're like this. You've been through battle, but you haven't made your peace with it." Locke grunted a little as he sat down on another stool that he'd just dragged from a corner. "That takes time, lad, and you're running from one battle to the next, far as I can tell. You need to take some time to cool your head." Drake closed his eyes and leaned forwards, resting his forehead on his hands.

"I get jittery when I sit for too long..." Drake didn't even flinch as he heard Locke chuckle, nor when he felt the older man's hand ruffle his hair again. He simply moved one of his hands to put it back into order.

"That's part of what I was talking about, lad. Your mind is used to the fuss of battle still. Just sit and relax. Don't think about anything, if you can." Drake's eyes opened at that, his mind instantly a-whirl. "Let your mind rest."

Drake turned his head to watch as Locke walked back out to the courtyard, where he could hear Andreas and Alexia talking. The door closed, muffling the noise of normal life, which made it easier for Drake to clear his mind.

Drake had no idea how long he simply sat there in a state close to meditation, but it was close to dark all across the city when a gentle hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality. He blinked his eyes open and turned his head to see Alexia looking at him with a worried look on his face. He sat up and winced as his neck complained, and tilted his head to the side to ease the tension with a cracking sound.

"Are you alright? You've been sitting there for quite a while." Drake smiled slightly at her and stood, noting that the ache was also all over his body. He must have been sitting for a good long while.

"I'm fine. ...Better than I came here feeling, actually. I needed to clear my head out, like Locke said." Alexia still looked a bit worried, and Drake smiled at her softly. "Really. I'm feeling good now."

"Glad to hear it, lad. Now, it's about time you went and fetched your friends, yes?" Drake turned and blinked at Andreas, who had a large amount of leather bundled in his arms. "Here. Alexia spent a good long while mending what she could of this. It should still protect you better than what you have now." Drake blinked at the gift that was shoved into his arms, and unfolded it.

A long jerkin of sorts was the main piece of the armor, though it had only one arm and left his right side completely open. It went down to mid-thigh, and by the weight of it, had metal sewn in between the pieces of leather for added protection. A metal pauldron covered in leather to hide the glint during the hunt was also in the bundle, and Drake assumed that it was to go over his right shoulder. The only mending that he could pick out was at the elbow of the single sleeve. It seemed a little sloppy, but it wasn't like a tailor couldn't pick out the stitches and make it look prettier. A simple armguard was hiding under the pauldron, Drake couldn't help but smile a little. It looked very much like the armguards that he remembered seeing at the archery range he'd gone to at camp, growing up. They hadn't been very reliable, and he'd ended up with bruises all the way down his arm.

"Wow...This is much better than the haphazard armor I've been using for the past couple of years." Andreas chuckled at Drake's open admiration, and gestured for Alexia to tend to the hearth, where some food was cooking.

"My wife made it for me while I was still a Chosen. It kept me safe, and I hope it will keep you safe." Drake smiled at the old man, showing his appreciation in his eyes.

"Thank you. This, more than anything else, humbles me." Drake bowed slightly to Andreas, and blinked as the old man clapped him on the shoulder as he straightened. The energetic look in his eyes was completely different from when Drake had first entered the courtyard.

"It has been years since I felt the blood flow in my veins like this. Living here, where so few chose to come, I have felt lost from the rest of the world. And then you come, with bright eyes and bold ideas. You've made me feel young again. Those Alexandrian soldiers have already come by to see if I would dare to resist them, and walked away, convinced that I was simply an old man." Andreas gave a wolf-like grin. "It's time for them to see that even a former Chosen is never simply anything. You and your friends hide amongst the flowers, lad. Let Locke and I work to free our city. You simply focus on recovering." Drake stared at the old man for a moment, and then nodded, smiling.

"Take care...old man." Andreas laughed at the slight ribbing, and shook his head as the modern Chosen walked out to the courtyard, already pulling off his old armor.

"It's been ages since I last saw Andreas so energetic. I guess meeting you was really what he needed." Drake blinked at Locke as he finally got his vest off, and folded it up, sliding it into his magicked pouch. "He was like you, long ago. Only he let himself burn out." Drake stared at Locke for a moment, suddenly understanding why the old thief hadn't been leaving him alone about his reaction to battle.

"That's why you were so concerned, then." Drake tugged his new armor over his left arm and twisted a little to buckle the small belts that kept it secured on his right side. "You didn't want me to be that defeated so young." Drake fidgeted with the jerkin a bit, getting it to sit right on him. He then picked up the pauldron and looked at it, looking a little confused about how it went on.

"Exactly." Locke walked over and fixed how Drake was holding the pauldron, and helped him to put it on, connecting one of the several belts coming from the substantial piece of armor to where it belonged on the jerkin. "You've got a kind heart, which is rare these days. I don't want you to lose that." Locke took a step back as Drake figured out the rest of the belts.

"I'll keep that in mind. I'm sure Zidane would like to keep me around for a good long while yet." Drake managed to put the armguard on, remembering how he'd done it when he was much younger, and looked down at himself. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the yellow sash that Freya had given him, and wrapped that around his hips, keeping the jerkin from swinging around too much.

"I'll lead you to the exit, then. I'll be around outside near midday tomorrow, if it takes you too long to get them here tonight." Drake nodded to Locke, and pulled the cloak on, having just slung his new bow over his shoulder so it protruded over the same shoulder his pauldron was on. He pulled the hood up, just enough to cover his facial features from anyone looking for him, but not enough that he couldn't see.

A drop hit his hood, and he glanced up as Locke cursed under his breath. He hadn't heard anyone shout, so he figured it was rain. Sure enough, the clouds overhead were dark and threatening.

"At least it'll put out whatever fires haven't been controlled already." Locke turned his head to look at Drake, and sighed, looking back towards where they were headed. "Though it does mean I'll have to rush." As more raindrops fell, Drake and Locke continued to walk down the street, seeing people scramble to get off the street and to dry underhangs.

The street soon turned into a small river, soaking Drake's old boots, which had long since lost their waterproofing. He was simply glad that most of the disgusting had already been washed away by the time he got to the ancient gate out to the plateau. The soldier that had been posted to guard the gate was long gone, likely to some dry spot within the Garden District.

Drake unstrung his bow from where he'd looped it over him, and then restrung it once he'd removed it, adjusting his oilcloth cloak. He looked over the plateau, hoping to find some sort of sign of his friends, only to realize he could barely see Pinnacle Rocks through the falling rain. He sighed a little and started to head out that way, figuring that they would stay near to where he had last see them. It would make finding them a good deal easier.

It was a bit eerie, walking through the rain towards something he could barely see, hearing the patter of the rain on his hood. Occasionally a drop would hit his nose, making him blink. At times he thought he heard an Alexandrian squad, but when he turned to look around, he was the only living thing within sight. Eventually he figured that it was just his mind playing tricks on him, making him relive the last time he was inside of a rainstorm.

After a long, long walk, Drake finally noted a pinprick of light far in front of him, and squinted through the rain. He could barely see the outline of a tent, and he sighed, blowing a drop of water off of his nose. Looked like he didn't have too much longer to walk to get to his friends.

"Hallooo, the camp!" Drake lifted his bare hand to rub at his nose just after he yelled towards the tent, seeing the tent move as someone tried to open the flap. He waved his bow as he saw the faint form of someone poking their head out of the tent.

"Drake! About time!" Drake grinned at Zidane's voice, his heart lightening as he moved to the tent. "The other two are out cold, along with the moogle." Drake nodded as he crouched in front of the tent, and moved to go in before he thought of something.

He pulled his cloak off and hooked it over the top of the ten with the hood, creating another layer on that side of the tent, as well as a little extra room. He then slid inside, making sure he didn't step on anyone. He accepted the towel that Drake figured had come with the moogle, and wiped off his face.

"New bow, new armor...You go shopping?" Drake chuckled softly at Zidane's teasing, grinning lopsidedly at his friend. Vivi stirred in his sleep, and Drake turned his eyes to the boy, a soft look on his face.

"Not quite. I have found a place for us to get into the city, though we'll have to move during the cover of darkness. Also...It's not the main entrance." Drake couldn't help but smirk at the confused look on Zidane's face. "I'll give you a hint. It's the oldest part of town, and shows it."

The confused look on Zidane's face morphed into an understanding one tinged with disgust. Drake couldn't help but chuckle, shaking his head. The Garden District wasn't as bad as he'd heard for years. It was washed out by the rain, whenever there was any, so all the dirt and disgusting was washed out into the plateau and perhaps off of it.

"It's much better than you think, trust me. The old Chosen of Lindblum lives there." Drake smiled as he saw the surprised look on his friend's face. "He's the one who gave me this armor and the bow. I met Locke, too. Gave the two of them some ideas to make the Alexandrians realize that they aren't welcome in our city." Zidane chuckled and rubbed his flat nose, closing his eyes. "Go to sleep, bro. I've still got plenty of energy, and you're exhausted."

Zidane looked at Drake levelly for a moment, before he had to yawn. Drake laughed at that a bit, and Zidane shook his head a little as he lay down. Drake simply settled himself at the entrance to the tent, listening rather than looking to tell whether anything was approaching their little camp.

It was several hours later that Vivi stirred, and Drake turned his head to look at the young mage. Drake smiled as he saw the boy blinking at him like he thought he was still dreaming and rub his eye. The princess seemed to still be fast asleep.

"You're up rather early." Drake offered the black mage a hand in clambering over Zidane. "It's still raining, too." Drake reached out and moved his cloak a little to show the veil of rain between them and Lindblum. The skies were just starting to lighten, even through the clouds. "The sun should be up in a few hours, perhaps. A bit hard to tell with the cloud cover." Vivi stretched a little next to Drake, still seeming to be sleepy.

"I can keep watch, Drake. You're tired, right?" Drake blinked at the young mage, and tilted his head to the side, only now paying attention to his sense of exhaustion. "I know Zidane was, but he insisted on taking first watch." Drake chuckled at Vivi's subtle demand for equality, and nodded to the boy, shifting out of the way of the tent entrance.

"Alright. Keep your ears keen." Drake folded one leg underneath himself and rested his elbow on the other, his bow tucked between his neck and his pauldron, where he could feel it. He the closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, sending himself fast to sleep.

The next time Drake opened his eyes, the sun was up, though the rain was still falling. Dagger yelped as he lifted his head and tilted it to the side to crack it, and Drake blinked at her, his head still tilted. She sighed, and Drake tilted his head the other way.

"Morning." Drake arched his back and sighed as he felt the bones re-align all the way down his spine. "Ugh. Note to self: falling asleep sitting up hurts." A couple of chuckles came, and Drake grinned lopsidedly, much like he used to. He noticed the odd, but relieved look on Zidane's face, and shifted forwards to move the cloak covering the entrance with his bow.

"Still raining. We gonna head out now?" Drake rubbed at his head as he thought about how long he had walked the night before and what time of day they needed to get there in order to miss the guard that kept an eye on the Garden District entrance. After a few moments, he shook his head.

"We'll get there far too early. We need to leave at midday." The cloak was lifted again, and he peered at the horizon, staring at the clouds. "The rain should let up around then, though the grass will be soaking wet. It'll make hard going." Drake folded his legs under himself, resting his elbows on his knees and setting his bow back to its spot between his neck and pauldron.

"You've changed a bit, Drake. You're calmer than you were the other day." Drake smiled lopsidedly again, even chuckling a little. "What'd you do in Lindblum, other than getting new armor and a new bow?" Drake turned his left arm over to show the completely healed scars.

"Met a couple of old Chosens, one of which was of Lindblum. Pretty sure I started a rebellion. My arm was healed the rest of the way. And I think I impressed a few people. Not much." Zidane blinked at Drake's short list of what he did, and laughed a little, amused by how light his friend had made of his accomplishments. "Oh. And I managed to clear my head, thanks to some of Locke's advice." Zidane blinked at that comment of Drake's, and smiled, now understanding what he saw as being different about the archer.

"Finally managed to calm down, huh?" Drake nodded slightly to Zidane, and stretched his shoulders forwards, hearing them pop a bit. "You look a bit better for it. More aware." Drake shrugged, and accepted the trail rations from the moogle, who was still silent.

"So Dagger...What happened after you left Lindblum?" Drake hoped that this topic would keep them from talking about him. He still disliked having so much attention on him, despite his new status as a leader.

After several hours of catching up and simply chatting, Drake announced that they should get going, and stepped out of the tent, holding the cloak up so that the others wouldn't get rained on. He draped it around Dagger's shoulders with a small smile, and lifted a hand to wipe the raindrops from his face.

"Looks like it's lightened up. That's good. Thank you, Migren." The moogle jumped as Drake properly identified her, and shuffled her feet. Dagger adjusted the cloak over herself, and looked around.

"No problem, kupo! Stay safe!" Drake nodded, and led the group off, tramping a path through the soaking wet, hip-tall grass. Like the day before, virtually no monsters were about, which made the going much easier. The rain slowly stopped, but Drake stopped Dagger from pulling the hood down, reminding her that the Alexandrian army was in charge of Lindblum, and would undoubtedly attack if they saw her.

By the time they reached the Garden District gate, the guard was indeed gone, and Drake led the way into the dim district, smiling at the man that was waiting for them. Locke lifted an eyebrow, looking from Drake to the person in the cloak, and Drake simply winked a little, showing that he would explain later.

Zidane was looking around, his nose wrinkled a little at the residual scent of the district. Vivi simply adjusted his hat, and Drake reached over to plant a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"We'd best get you someplace safer. Come, this way." Drake smiled at Locke, and gestured for the others to go first, intending to bring up the rear. Zidane walked between Dagger and Vivi, in case anyone wanted to attack the little black mage.

Again, Locke led them through winding backways, and Drake started to realize that he recognized the path. The cellar that he'd taken a nap in was finally reached, and Drake sighed with relief once they were all in the basement and the door was closed. He walked over to where he remembered there being a candle, and lit it with a bit of flint and tinder that Locke had slipped into his pouch before taking him to Andreas.

"We're safe now. Dagger, you can take the hood off." Drake sat down on the makeshift cot, his shoulders relaxing as he set his bow down. Dagger hesitated before doing what he suggested, her dark brown eyes glancing around. Locke's eyes widened, and he looked to Drake.

"You've brought dangerous friends about, lad." Drake smirked a little and shrugged, showing that he already knew. Zidane was poking about the cellar, and Vivi walked over to sit next to Drake, who smiled at him and smushed his hat, to which the young black mage protested quietly.

"She is currently in hiding. What better place to hide than under their noses? Right now, there's more of an Alexandrian presence here than in Alexandria itself." Locke sighed at Drake's points, and rubbed at his nose, thinking hard. He pulled a 10 gil coin out and rolled it over in his fingers like it was an old habit. Drake rested his heel on the bench below him, and set his elbow on his knee.

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**End notes:** Wow, four breaks. Yeesh, I hadn't realized this chapter was that choppy. Anyway, read and review! Apologies for the notes being so short, it's before my shift at work and I'm a bit rushed.


	7. Amongst the Flowers

**Authoress' Note: **Again, I am so sorry that it's taken so long to update! I have the dubious honor of working in the department that deals with non-food things in a grocery store, so I've been insanely busy for quite a while. I've also had to struggle with writer's block on the chapter after this.

I should have more time on my hands after Christmas, but I'm starting up college classes again in the spring. Updates may be next to non-existant then.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the Final Fantasy franchise. I own only Drake, Anastasia, and the concept of the Constellato.

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Chapter 7: Amongst the Flowers

Drake yawned as he woke, and opened his eyes to the stained ceiling of Locke's home, and sat up on the small cot, stretching his arms and rolling his left shoulder, feeling it ache a little. Nearby, Zidane was still snoozing away, his tail wriggling occasionally as he dreamed. Drake shook his head at his friend, getting up and walking to the window dressed in only his trousers.

Outside, the Garden District was already moving about, from refugees trying to find a place to stay and things to do, to the members of the district going about their normal lives. As he watched, a familiar seeming boy stopped chasing after his friends to pick up something that a refugee in rich clothing had dropped to hand it to them, smiling with his gapped teeth. Drake couldn't help but chuckle a little at the look of gratitude on the man's face, knowing that the man likely would have hit the boy for even touching something of his, prior to Alexandria's attack.

"Up already, I see." Drake turned his head as Locke came into the loft holding a wicker basket that smelled of freshly baked bread. The archer's stomach growled at the scent, and the old thief chuckled. "And hungry, to boot. My neighbor is a good baker, and I bought some rolls and flavored breads from her for you and your friend." Drake accepted the covered basket and lifted the cloth covering it, his stomach growling again as he sniffed the warm aroma.

"Nnn...Wha' smells so good?" Drake laughed a bit at Zidane, who was just starting to sit up, looking drowsy, and tossed his brother a sweet roll. "Mm? Mmmm…." Drake laughed again as Zidane bit into the roll without hesitation, and pulled out a roll of his own.

"Mm. These are really good. Better than we've ever gotten in the Theatre district." Drake sat on his cot, chewing happily at the delicious roll. Locke laughed at the two of them.

"Sarisa's been getting offers to move to other districts for years. She's turned them down time after time. She prefers to stay here, where her family is." Drake finished his roll and licked his fingertips. "You've actually met her, Drake." The archer frowned a little, wondering what he meant.

"Uncle Locke!" Drake blinked as he heard a little kid yelling from below, and Locke stomped on the floor a couple of times. "Oh, there you are." A boy's head popped up from the trapdoor, a little dirty but energetic.

"What do you need, Bartz?" The boy pulled himself up and laughed a bit, rubbing the back of his head with a silly grin. Drake stared at him as he started on another roll, wondering where he remembered the boy from. He was the one that he'd seen pick something up for a refugee just a few moments ago, he was sure, but Drake had seen him somewhere else.

"Ahh...Just a place to hide. Playin' hide an' seek." Drake chuckled and tossed a roll to the boy, suddenly realizing where he remembered him from. The boy blinked at him, the warm roll in his hands. "Ah! You're the guy Ma gave Da's old quiver to!" Drake grinned, glad that the boy remembered him as well.

"I'm glad to see you aren't giving the refugees the same welcome you gave me." The boy blushed a little and scuffed his well-worn boot on the ground, looking embarrassed. Zidane looked between Drake and the boy, looking a bit confused. "Though I guess that hunters aren't well liked here, considering how little they do." Zidane's eyes widened as he suddenly realized what Drake meant, and reached for the basket to grab another roll.

"Ah, so this is the kid that threw crap at you." Drake tossed a roll to his brother, seeing as Zidane couldn't quite reach. Zidane immediately chomped into it, smiling happily.

"Finally found a way to get you to shut up." Locke and Drake both laughed at the look on Zidane's face. The boy laughed as well, earning a glare from Zidane. Drake waved a hand as he shoved a roll into his own mouth, showing the boy that he shouldn't be worried about that. "I think it's been...what, a couple of days since we last had a decent meal? I don't think I ate much yesterday, for all that I was in the city for most of the day." Zidane seemed to be thinking while he chewed, and then nodded, showing that he was pretty sure that was the case.

"Doesn't help ya that you were too antsy to sit still for long yesterday, either." Drake tilted his head to the side a little as he chewed, shrugging a bit. He knew that he had been having issues since Burmecia, but the past was in the past.

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Drake smiled a little as he walked along the main street of the Garden District, Bartz darting around to meet and greet refugees that were still trickling in. Bartz had spoken to his mother, and had gotten the okay to spend time following Drake around while he did things like get new boots, some new clothes, and some food to give out to the refugees.

The archer knew that there weren't many soldiers that knew his face and could connect it to the Chosen of Lindblum. The description of him likely had him wearing his old armor, so he knew he had to change his normal clothes out for a new set. Not that he really minded. His shirt was starting to get threadbare, and his pants were stained. The boots that he'd had for only a year or so were worn down so much that he had no grip on the ground.

He'd even left his bow and quivers behind, knowing that he likely wouldn't need to do any fighting. It also made him seem more like just another member of the crowd. His armor was sitting with his weapons, revealing his tan and his threadbare shirt. He had his old green sash on, though, hiding his pouch. He didn't want to risk being identified by it, as there was a design reminiscent of a Celtic knot on the top flap of it.

"Hey mister..." Drake turned his head to look as a child tugged on his sash, and smiled at the dirty young boy. He crouched down so he was on the same level as the child, to show he was giving him his full attention. "Have you seen my mama? She went to visit my dad at work." Drake frowned a little.

"Where does your dad work?" The boy shuffled his feet, looking down. He was a human boy, but Drake could see that his eyes were a slightly different shape, so perhaps he'd had an ancestor who wasn't human.

"Industrial district." Drake's eyes widened at that news. One thing that he'd managed to hear was that that district had indeed been completely decimated. He'd heard of people who lived near it surviving, but had yet to hear of anyone who had been in it surviving.

"I don't think they're coming back, kiddo." The boy looked up at Drake, his eyes wide and starting to water. Drake had to wonder if he'd been the first one to tell him that. He could see people standing nearby looking at the boy with pity. He lifted his head and caught the eye of Bartz, who then scampered over to see what he wanted. "Bartz, could you keep an eye on him? His parents were in the Industrial District during the attack." Bartz's smile immediately disappeared, and he nodded somberly. Drake pulled a ten Gil coin out of the tiny pouch that he wore just forwards of his enchanted pouch, where he kept a small amount of money. "Get him something to eat, while you're at it." Both boys' eyes lit up at that, and Drake smiled, patting both of them on the head before standing and going on his way, trusting Bartz to keep the younger boy out of trouble.

"You're a generous young man." Drake turned his head to look at an old woman that was sitting just outside of a shop, and smiled vaguely. "Sarisa's son has changed a great deal since the last Hunt Festival. I'd heard that the champion was the one to change him so. I also have heard he's a fair generous man, and an archer to boot." Drake's smile increased a bit as he saw the piercing look the old woman was giving him. She stood stiffly and gestured for him to follow her into the shop. The young man obliged her unspoken request.

"You've heard a great deal about this man, then. Have you heard ought else?" The old woman sat with a slight groan near a hearth behind the counter, and leaned her forearms on the scarred wooden object. Drake could only guess where the scars came from, as the wares in the shop were of clothing, thread, and needles.

"I have heard that he left to aid another country just after he won the Hunt. I've heard folk whisper that he's returned, and encouraged an old man of Lindblum to pick up his bow once more." Drake's eyebrow lifted at that. He hadn't been expecting anyone to hear about that already. "I've heard he walks with a noble, and a child similar to the dolls that attacked our city." Drake's smile faded a little. He could hear that there were only a couple of other people in the store, and they were towards the back and up a story.

"You've heard a great deal, grandmother." The old crone merely smiled at Drake, showing her yellowed, chipped teeth. "Might a breeze have carried such words to you?" Now the old woman looked aware as Drake leaned on her counter, looking to the world outside like he was simply chatting with the old woman. He knew why he'd piqued her interest so suddenly, too. It was a phrase that Locke had told him to use to get the cooperation of his spies.

"Mayhap. What matter is it to a gray goose? You hear all anyhow." Drake's smirk grew as he identified the proper responding quote, and searched through his memories for the third quote of the sequence.

"To see if the winds carried the same news to other geese." The old woman relaxed a bit now, and smiled a bit at Drake. She shook her head a little, seeming to be bemused. Drake had a feeling he knew why she was so bemused. Locke had given him the trio of quotes before letting the young man out of the house for errands, telling him to look for various people who seemed to know a good deal but didn't talk much of it. Drake could tell that the only reason this woman had been mentioning such things was because she'd suspected him of being the Hunt Champion.

"Never thought to be hearing those words out of such a young mouth. You're looking to buy clothing, yes, lad? Come, come." Drake pushed off of the counter as the old woman gestured for him to follow her. He knew that she was going to ask him many questions under the guise of helping a customer. "Celes! Lass, I need you to mind the store." Drake blinked at the name, mentally surprised.

It seemed as though there were many people named for the characters of previous games scattered throughout Lindblum. He had thought that Locke had been a simple nod to Final Fantasy 6, but it seemed he was simply the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Sarisa, if he recalled, was the real name of Faris, one of the main characters of Final Fantasy 5, and Bartz had been the main character of that same game. The statues of Minotaur and Sacred were from Final Fantasy 8, which was by far more technological than Final Fantasy 9. He couldn't help but wonder if there were any others from that game.

The woman that came from the back room looked vaguely like Locke, which made him blink. She had light blonde hair pulled back in a series of braids, with a green ribbon tying them back. She had a few lines in her face in her middle age, and there was a young girl clinging to the back of her skirt.

"Mother, I was about to set Terra down for a nap." Drake blinked at the young girl, who was staring at him with bright blue eyes. She seemed to have inherited her mother's light blonde hair, though hers was short and curly. The archer figured she couldn't have been older than four.

"She's still looking lively, Celes. She can stay up a while yet." The old woman gestured for her granddaughter, and the girl released her mother's skirt to hug the old woman, who had a soft smile on her face. "I'll keep an eye on her for you." Celes sighed, but walked to the counter, quietly acquiescing to her mother's request.

Drake followed the grandmother to an area that he recognized from other tailories that he had been to: a raised section of the floor with a full-length mirror. The mirror here had a crack going across the top of it, but it was otherwise fine. The platform was bare wood, the grain extended from the rest of the wood from years of wear.

Terra went and picked up the small basket of tailoring tools, and brought it to her grandmother, a smile on her tiny face. The old woman smiled fondly at the girl and gestured for Drake to stand on the floor instead of the platform, taking the basket from the child and pulling out the measuring tape. Drake held his arms up as the old woman stooped to measure him for a pair of pants, likely seeing that he was going to need a new pair soon, as his were already threadbare from the sand he'd had to deal with for just over a week.

After he was measured for pants, the old woman had him sit on the platform so that she could reach his arms and shoulder better. "You've muscles I usually see only in swordfighters, for all that you are an archer." Drake blinked at that, lifting an eyebrow. He'd used a wooden sword only briefly during the play. That wasn't nearly enough time to get the muscles for it. "Though I can see that you shoot arrows much more than you do swordplay."

Drake blinked down at the old woman as she measured his left forearm around the widest part, where his scar was. She didn't seem to look surprised at it at all, and Drake figured that she'd seen the wounds a breaking bow had given to its wielder before. There were many archers in the Garden District, and this was one of the few tailor's places he'd seen throughout the district. And judging by the clothing in the other section of the store, it was also a place where people bought pre-made clothing.

Terra grabbed his left hand once her grandmother was done, and traced a tiny finger over the numb scar. Drake smiled down at her as she seemed to be fascinated by the mark, and let her continue to do so. The girl's grandmother shook her head a little at the child's fascination, but didn't do anything about it, still writing down the measurements she'd just taken.

"Your arm owie?" Drake chuckled at the child's broken language, flexing his hand to make the scar move. The girl's eyes widened at that, awe in her eyes.

"Not anymore. A healer saw to that." The girl peered up at Drake's face as he smiled down at her. "I used to have an owie on my face, too, and she made that one go away completely." The girl's awe increased.

"Your bow shattered, I assume?" Drake lifted his head to look at the old woman, who was looking at him with a bit of understanding, now that she'd seen how he acted around her granddaughter.

"Yes. It was already breaking, and I used it just one time too many. I don't know exactly how badly injured I was, but I certainly worried my companions. They were hesitant to send me to Lindblum on my own." This made the woman look at him a bit sharply, not fully understanding why he'd arrived by himself, now that he'd told her of it.

"Hm. I suppose you'll need a bracer for your left arm as well. I don't make those, but there's a place in the Business District where you can get one." Drake frowned a little. He was hoping to get some new clothing and a haircut before leaving the Garden District. "I believe Dragoos can get you one, if you tell him you're a friend of mine." Drake blinked, wondering just how many store owners in the city of Lindblum knew each other.

"I'd rather been hoping to avoid leaving this district for a while." Drake flicked his eyes down towards Terra for a moment after meeting the old woman's eyes, showing that he didn't want to speak of why in front of the child. The old woman nodded, and gestured for him to come over to where she was, by the fabrics.

"Here, lad, come choose what fabrics you'd like." Drake sighed a little at that, and stood to walk over to her, leaning a little to the left as Terra was still holding onto his hand. He glanced over the cloth, his eyes picking out the differences between the fabrics. Somehow, he knew which would be the cheapest and would still be fairly sturdy just by looking at them. He tugged at that green fabric, and smiled a little as he felt the rough texture that he oddly knew would feel just fine against his skin.

The old woman lifted an eyebrow at his choice. Drake knew it was a sort of an odd choice, as it was really rough and usually used in vests. But without the starch that was so often used on Earth, it didn't brush against his skin as much. The old woman smirked a little and shrugged, pulling the sheaf of fabric out and setting it to the side.

After a few discussions of cut and the old woman trying to convince him not to use the rough fabric for a shirt, Drake paid a quarter of the whole price before turning to leave the tailor's shop. The old woman had stopped him just as he was about to leave, and the archer blinked at her.

"There's a woman a few streets down who cuts people's hair. Tell her Rachel sent you, and she won't charge you." Drake's eyes widened slightly at the wicked grin on the old woman's face. Now he understood something. He hadn't seen it in Ceres, but he could see it in Terra. Rachel and Locke had been an item at some point in time, and had a child. He didn't know if they were still together, or if Locke was protecting them by living separate, but now he understood why he had had that feeling.

Drake waved to Rachel and started to walk away, smiling. So Locke had finally gotten his first love, after all, even if it was in some other world. That was sweet. He shrugged and started to walk, tucking his thumbs into his belt.

People from the district noticed him, and a few murmured their thanks to him for his actions during the Festival of the Hunt. The young man simply smiled at them and murmured back that it was a small gesture, the least he could do for people that needed help. Many children decided to trail after him once he passed by Sarisa's bakery again, and Drake smiled as he saw that the boy that he'd told Bartz to look after was now looking cleaner and wearing a clean, if worn, shirt.

As the archer neared where the Alexandrian soldiers were, the children gathered around him, laughing and playing. Amidst the chaos, Bartz grabbed Drake's hand and tugged him towards a shop. Drake blinked at the boy, and laughed a bit as he saw where the boy was taking him. Seemed like everyone knew he wanted a haircut. He allowed Bartz to tow him inside, and blinked as he nearly tripped over a familiar seeming dog.

"Miss Rinoa~!" Drake blinked at the outright call, and rubbed the back of his head as Bartz let go of his wrist to dart deeper into the store to hug a young, pretty woman who had just walked out of the back room of the shop. She smiled down at the boy, but as Drake looked at her, he could tell that she wasn't as innocent as in the game she'd been from. There were too many shadows in her eyes for that.

"Bartz! You haven't been in recently. Has Uncle Locke been too busy to bring you?" Drake tilted his head to the side a little as the woman looked up. She looked a bit startled at him, but she relaxed at his small smile.

He could tell that this was the place that Rachel had spoken of just with a glance around. There was a wooden chair off to one side, with an old, but well taken care of mirror in front of it. There was a lantern for the purpose of lighting her work nearby, along with a straw broom.

"Rachel sent me, but Bartz showed me where your store was." Rinoa smiled, finally, amusement glinting in her eyes. Drake ruffled his hair with a wry smile, looking a little embarrassed. "Apparently my hair is so messy, it's offensive." Rinoa chuckled at that, and gestured towards the seat.

"I can take care of that, if you want. Since Rachel referred you, I'm more than willing to." Drake nodded slightly, and walked towards her chair. He blinked at himself in the mirror. Before, he had been looking at Rachel's hands as she had talked about the clothing she was going to make for him, so he hadn't realized that he was starting to grow a beard. It looked a bit sloppy.

The archer was able to relax as Rinoa set to work, not even putting any input in on what she was going to do with his hair. He simply watched Bartz in the mirror as he played with Angelo, the dog that had sniffed at him when they'd entered. The dog looked a bit old, but good-naturedly put up with the abuse that Bartz gave him, usually just tugging on the poor dog's ears and tail.

"All done." Drake blinked as Rinoa gave a tug on the back of his head, and turned his attention back to the mirror. His eyes widened as he saw how his hair had turned out, not expecting the look. "I wish I could have messed with your bangs a bit more, but they're awfully short as it is. Did someone cut them?" Drake tugged on his earlobe, an embarrassed smile on his face.

"I did. They were getting in the way, and I couldn't afford the distraction." To tell the truth, he'd been needing a haircut for several months. He simply hadn't bothered to go to the barber's. He supposed he should find one anyway, to clean up his chin.

"So you're a warrior?" Drake stood from the chair and brushed his shoulders off, smiling at Rinoa a bit. He glanced towards Bartz and chuckled as he realized the dog now had him pinned under a paw.

"I'm an archer. My sight is my life. My bangs were refusing to stay out of my eyes, so I cut them off with my belt knife." He couldn't help but laugh a little at the incredulous look on Rinoa's face. "I had no idea how soon I was going to see a city. It was either that or risk missing my target." Rinoa sighed and tilted her head to the side a little, an odd smile on her face.

"Rinoa, I'm back! Eh? Oh, a customer." Drake blinked at the laden brunette that stumbled in the door. Bartz darted from under Angelo's paw as the dog got to its feet, wagging its tail, and caught a bag that was about to fall. "Thank you, Bartz." Drake also darted over as a box started to fall from where the man couldn't see it.

"Squall! How many times have I told you to only carry as much as you couldn't drop?" Drake couldn't help but smile at the fond scolding, and plucked a bag from the brunette's hands and set it on the counter behind him.

"Uhh...Probably too many to count. Thank you." Drake simply nodded to the brunette, wondering if the Seifer of this world was also missing a scar. It seemed that some things changed about them. Squall was definitely not anti-social. "You...don't seem much like most customers." Drake blinked as Squall tilted his head to the side with a slightly suspicious look on his face.

The look of suspicion was quickly replaced with astonishment as Drake pulled his Stellazio from his vest. They hadn't heard the news that the Chosen of their city was around, which simply told him that they weren't part of Locke's information network.

"You-I-But I thought..." Drake lifted an eyebrow at Squall's lack of a coherent sentence, and looked down at Bartz as the boy tried to climb onto Angelo's back. That motion seemed to get the attention of the other two as well. "Bartz! You know you can't do that." Drake couldn't help but chuckle at Bartz, who was now pouting at Squall.

"It's bad for a dog's back, Bartz. I used to do it when I was younger, but I had larger dogs." Drake blinked at that memory, though he didn't show his surprise on his face. He couldn't remember having dogs growing up... Regardless, the boy pouted even more up at Drake. "Where's the boy I told you to keep an eye on?" Drake's reminder made Bartz's eyes widen, and he darted out the door to find him.

Squall turned to look at Drake, his eyebrows raised. The archer merely smiled a bit. Rinoa had gone to start putting things away, moving them from the counter into one of the back rooms.

"There was a boy whose parents were in the Industrial District when the attack came. I told Bartz to keep an eye on him to keep him company. I don't doubt that there are many kids on the street who'd be willing to play with the poor boy, but I think a face that's there constantly would help more." Squall nodded, a look of understanding on his face.

"C'mon, you look like you need a shave. I'll get my things." Drake blinked at Squall as he headed into a backroom. So Rinoa cut hair, and Squall shaved people? That was definitely far from the lives they'd led elsewhere. But they sort of deserved peace for what they went through elsewhere.

Drake sat back in the chair with the mirror in front of it as Squall came back from the back room carrying the things he needed for his job, and Drake wondered idly just how long Squall had had this job.

The brunette had steady hands, though, and Drake didn't feel the straight razor cut his skin even once. He didn't see any blood, either, as he looked into the mirror, rubbing a hand over his chin and neck.

"Easily the closest shave I've ever gotten." Drake hopped out of the chair and looked to Squall, who was putting his things away with a grin on his face.

"That's what every customer I work on says. Although some of them have said that Seifer, in the Noble District, gives a shave that's almost as close." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that. Well, there was the rivalry between the two of them, as well as the blades. But it seemed as though they had never actually met.

Rinoa came from the back room, and Drake glanced to her for a moment as she stared at him. He tilted his head to the side, looking back at her with a lifted eyebrow. It wasn't that big of a change, was it?

"Wow. You look great with a shave." Drake and Squall both chuckled, and Drake glanced at the door as Bartz came dashing in, the boy from before following him. "Ah, who's this?" Rinoa crouched to greet the boys, and Drake turned to look at Squall.

"So how much do I owe you two?" Squall looked at Drake with a smile, crossing his arms. Rinoa looked up from the two boys with a small smile on her face as well.

"I think what you've done for our district is well worth a cut and a shave. It's been a slow day, anyway." Drake blinked, looking surprised. He just wasn't used to the people of this district showing their gratitude to him like this.

"I'll pay next time I need a shave and a cut, then." The two shopkeepers grinned at him, and Drake crouched to look Bartz in the eye. "Now, what is it that you need? You've been a bit antsy since you came in." Bartz's smile faded a little, and he fidgeted.

"There's soldiers in the street. Alexandrian soldiers. I heard them mention that they were looking for any archers." Drake frowned at that, and glanced at Squall and Rinoa. He didn't want to get them into trouble.

"It's a good thing that you don't look like you did when you came in, and you don't have anything on you that stated that you're an archer." Drake nodded, smiling at Squall for his reminder, and took his Stellazio from his vest, tucking it into his pouch. "...And that definitely makes a difference, somehow." Drake grinned at that, and ruffled Bartz's hair as he stood.

"The Stellazio have an aura that makes people pay attention. I've got a way to hide that aura, thankfully. Still, I should be going. I've got a few errands to run, still." Rinoa and Squall both nodded, and Drake left the store the way he'd entered it, following after Bartz. The other boy was hanging onto Drake's sash.

The three of them wandered towards the market, the two boys disappearing into what seemed to be a growing crowd of youngsters. They scattered on occasion, if a soldier decided she didn't like seeing so many rambunctious youngsters in one place. Bartz led Drake to a good cobbler, and the archer soon found himself fitted for a two pairs of boots. The cobbler insisted on two, one for the city, and one for battle. One pair was promised to be done within two days, and Drake walked away, having paid half of the price for both boots up front.

The sun was going down by the time Drake was done with his errands in the one district, so he started to head back to Locke's place, noticing that several of the guards were looking harassed and impatient. More than one seemed to be missing their coin purses altogether, and some others had theirs hanging limp with a slice straight through the leather. He hid a smile, knowing that there were folk going home feeling much better of themselves, and likely, some refugees who had unknowingly been fed on Alexandria's coin.

Drake lifted a hand in greeting as he spotted the people who lived around Locke and Sarisa, walking up to them as the young men of that group grinned at him. Not all of them were built limber like an archer. More than one of them carried multiple knives, and a couple of them carried nothing but a beltknife. There were archers in their group, though, and like Drake, they had carefully avoided putting anything on that could give away their weapon of choice. One of them tossed Drake a strip of cloth and subtly tapped his own left arm. Drake smirked a little and wrapped his new scar up, hiding it.

"There's an eating house nearby as the soldiers won't step in. Come with us!" Drake rubbed his nose a little, but grinned regardless. He noticed Zidane off to the side, and nodded a bit towards him. The one that had spoken looked to the monkey-tailed thief, and gestured for him to join as well.

The whole group of them headed towards the poorer part of the district, and Drake kept his eyes moving until he noticed that when people started towards them subtly, they stopped short and moved past others. Occasionally he'd spot those people, youngsters mostly, tuck a leather or cloth purse of what was likely coins, into their shirts or pouches. Most of what they grabbed were a few coins. Seemed like the pickings were thin in this part of the city.

The young men leading Drake and Zidane turned into a wooden building that looked like it had easily seen better days, with a picture of a dog on its hind legs on the sign. Drake had to squint to read the writing that was done in fading paint. He couldn't help but smile.

"The Dancin' Dog's been around for a long while. The folk as own it used t'be nobles way back in th'day, but I heard a few generations back they did sommat t' upset the Regent." Drake blinked at that, wondering where that information had been when he was learning about the history of Lindblum.

"Ah, they're jus' puttin' on airs. They're Garden District all th' way back." They all sat down at a long table, with Drake and Zidane in the middle. They were directed to sit there, so Drake imagined that it was to camouflage them in case soldiers did decide to sniff around in this eating house.

"The Garden District's the oldest district, so technically even the Regent's line comes through here." Drake glanced at the serving girl as she came by, and asked for something weak, even though he got shoved by the men around him with teases. "Hey, I know my limits, and I got stuff to do tomorrow as well." Zidane got something a good deal stronger than Drake, which didn't surprise the archer too much. The men around them ordered a good deal of food for them all to share, which seemed to be the norm for them, as the girl didn't look surprised.

The boys gossiped a bit, talking about the Alexandrian soldiers. It was a bit demeaning, but Drake merely let it go, not piping up as he simply listened to what all the rest were saying. One of them swore that he'd heard from someone who heard from someone that one of the Alexandrian soldiers had actually shacked up with a Garden District man while on duty. The rest hooted with laughter at that, including Zidane. None of the men asked the two travelers about their adventures. Drake couldn't see it in them, but he could feel that the men on either side of him were constantly tense, as though they were expecting something to happen.

Drake was set on the side of the table facing away from the door, so he saw Zidane glancing to the door from time to time. The serving girl came with their ale, and Drake smiled at her as she set his down, noticing that she blushed a bit and looked away sharply. The men with him stared at him a bit, and started to interrogate him on how he managed to get the attention of all the women that they'd seen. Drake lifted an eyebrow at that as Zidane sniggered into his ale.

"I don't try, really. I tend to wish that they didn't. Makes it hard to hide sometimes." The archers' smiles faded a bit at that, and more than one glanced at the door, knowing why he'd said that. Being good at getting the attention of women was a bad thing when the army of people looking for you to kill you were all female.

The food came, then, large wooden bowls of steaming stew set in the middle of the table as each man got a hollowed out, stale loaf of bread. Drake let the others grab their food first, as he'd paused to eat a couple of times while out that day, and then served himself, pulling out his belt knife, which Locke had cleaned and sharpened for him the night before, and speared a bit of meat with it, like the others had. Wooden spoons were passed around, and Drake tried the broth. His eyebrows went up, and he slowly started to smile, noticing the smiles of the men around him as well.

"How did I live in Lindblum for so long without hearing about this place?" Drake chuckled as Zidane summed up what was going through Drake's head. The archer simply started to fill his face, much to the amusement of the others. He wasn't eating as fast as possible, but he was still eating at a fair clip.

"There's some people who won't leave this part of town just because this is where they've always been. They know life here, and the people around them. If they're good at what they do, word spreads, and they take as many customers as they can. They give back to those around them in return. Rachel, Squall and Rinoa, Luneth, Sarisa...They didn't move far, and they don't make those they know well pay much. The folks as come from other districts? They never even hear about the discounts they give us." Drake looked at the man to his left as he paused in eating. The cobbler that Bartz had led him to was Luneth. He had to wonder if it was because of Bartz that his coin pouch wasn't empty.

"Old man Andreas, too, when he still made arrows and bows." Drake choked a little on his food, and got a solid whack to his back and a refill on his ale, as the serving girl was going past. "What? Somethin' try to go down the wrong tube?" Drake shook his head as he coughed to clear his throat.

"Andreas is still makin' things." He took the ale from the serving girl as she came by, and took a drink before continuing. He glanced to Zidane to see him nod slightly, meaning that only the people at their table were obviously listening. "I went to him just after I came into town, after the attack. He gave me a bow he'd been working on." The other archers at the table stared at him and starting to whisper a little amongst each other. The others glanced between them and Drake, who lowered his eyes and started to eat his food again.

"You're the one all those soldiers are lookin' for? Th' one as fought against them in Burmecia and Cleyra?" The archer sitting next to Zidane leaned forwards a little, his voice low. Drake nodded, lifting his eyes again. His jaws worked on a particularly chewy piece of meat. The archer sat back, his eyebrows lifting. Drake knew he was tan enough, and his clothes worn enough. What he couldn't see, though, were his eyes, and that was what the rest were staring at. He could see the shadows in Zidane's eyes, though, from what they'd been through. His friend had been more used to violence and destruction than the archer, but even he couldn't forget the amount of death that they'd seen.

"People from Cleyra got here safely? That's good." Drake glanced at Zidane as he spoke, still working on the piece of meat. Talk turned to who had managed to get to Lindlbum so quickly, while Drake kept chewing...and chewing...and chewing.

"Y'ever gonna swallow that bite, Drake?" A few laughs came from those who had noticed that Drake was still chewing the same bite, and the archer finally decided it was soft enough to risk swallowing. He winced a bit as he did so, as it still wasn't as soft as he'd wished. "There y'go. Got a tough bit, huh?" Drake nodded and had some of the broth and a bit of the bread that had soaked it up.

"Didn't want to go down, either." A gulp of ale helped Drake to ease his throat, and he grimaced at the men around him as they were laughing. It seemed as though the cook occasionally put pieces of heart in the stew to add flavor, and Drake had gotten one of those pieces. Most of the people who ate there tended to set those bits off to the side.

They all laughed and talked for quite a while, until Drake excused himself, and headed off to Locke's house. The old man was sitting in his front hall, whittling something, and looked up at the archer as he stepped in. The old thief smirked and stood, sheathing his knife and setting the piece of wood on the mantle of his fireplace.

"I was wondering when you'd be able to get away from those boys. They've good hearts, but lack sense on occasion. Zidane stayed with them?" Drake nodded and rubbed his head, and sat where the thief gestured for him to. "Y'drank a bit."

"Two pints. It was watered down, anyhow. I told them I was a lightweight." Drake accepted a mug of tea that Locke made for him, and sipped it. "The stew at the Dancing Dog's good, though." Locke grinned at that, and Drake set his mug on his knee, feeling the heat seep through the fabric.

"That it is. Rachel told me that you'd been by. She was surprised by how polite you were." Drake bit back a smirk, looking at the brown liquid that was in his mug. "And I can see that she sent you to Rinoa and Squall. You stayed in the Garden District all day long?" Drake nodded, looking up.

"Bartz took me to Luneth as well. I should be getting at least one new pair of boots in a couple of days." Drake looked evenly at Locke, and took a gulp of his tea. "One of the guys mentioned that all of them, and Sarisa, are the merchants that give discounts on high quality products for the people they like and can trust." Locke fidgeted a little. Drake simply lifted an eyebrow at him, the idea that had occurred to him while eating suddenly confirmed. "You told him to bring me there." Locke looked to the fire, and Drake took a gulp of his tea.

"They're the only ones that I could figure wouldn't cheat you of your gil. The Chosen watch out for each other." Drake yawned a little, and tilted his head to the side to crack his neck. He then rolled his shoulder, hearing it crack a bit as well.

"Still, you could have told me outright. I wouldn't have minded as much." He noticed Locke wince out of the corner of his eye. Likely, the man was kicking himself for underestimating the young Chosen. Drake had been naïve when he had first arrived in Lindblum, but he'd learned very quickly. "Well, anyway, I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to head to the Business District first thing in the morning." The young archer drained his mug of tea and set it on the table nearby, walking to the ladder to the loft, and disappeared up through the trapdoor.

Locke watched the much younger man, and shook his head, smiling a little. The boy had changed, yes, and he was healing from battle, but he kept moving. Andreas had dwelled on the deaths he had caused for much, much longer. Though he didn't doubt that Drake would have allowed it to eat him from the inside out if someone hadn't sat him down and told him to just rest. The boy was always looking for something to do, someone to help. He was a good lad, and whoever had raised him had done a good job.

The old man took another gulp of his own mug of tea and settled into his wooden chair to wait for Zidane to stagger in. The monkey-tailed young man had a different way of coping than the archer did. It tended to be more self-destructive.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake yawned as he rolled over, and grunted as he fell off the low cot that he'd fallen asleep on. A snore made him look to the other cot, and he smiled a little as he saw Zidane face-down on the bed. The archer reached over for his shirt and tugged it on, stretching. He stretched until he felt his muscles were loose, and then tugged his old boots onto his feet before sliding down the ladder to the main floor. Locke was snoring lightly in his room off to the side of the kitchen, and Drake smiled a little as he prodded the fire into life.

As the archer opened the shutters, he saw that it was still dark in the Garden District, though the castle, high above, was lit in the sunrise. Movement in the yard behind Sarisa's house made the archer look, and he waved to the woman as she brought bags of flour in from the shed she kept it in. She smiled at him and continued to heft the bags, not seeming to mind the menial task. Drake smiled back and then ducked back into the house, wondering where Locke got his water. There should have been a well around somewhere...

The old thief seemed to sleep lighter than the archer expected, and the young man turned to see the old man stepping out of his room. Drake smiled a little, and the old man smiled back, looking a little sleepy.

"The well's out back, if you want to get the water." Drake grabbed the bucket sitting by the door and slipped out the back. The well wasn't like he'd imagined. It had a pump to use to draw the water up instead of a winch. The archer hung the bucket on the end of the pump and started to work the simple machine, grunting with the effort. The device could use a bit of oiling, but Drake's strength was enough to draw the water up. Once he'd filled the bucket, he hefted it up and carried it into the house, huffing and puffing with the weight. He set it down as he sighed, feeling that his face was red from the exertion.

"I'm not suited for carrying buckets of water," the archer joked, resting his weight on his knees as he sat on the stool near the fireplace. The old thief laughed and filled the kettle with the water that Drake had drawn from the well.

"I've been meaning to get a smaller bucket anyhow. And get that pump fixed. It's hard to work these days." Drake laughed a bit breathlessly at that, and wiped a bit of sweat from his face. Zidane stumbled down the ladder, landing flat on his back. "Ah, and the dead wake." The monkey-tailed man stumbled to his feet with a groan and a glare towards the archer. "You were snoring louder than Baku when I woke up." Locke chuckled and prepared three mugs of tea, adding some extra herbs to one mug.

The monkey-tailed man simply groaned as he sat at the table, and set his forehead on the wooden surface, allowing his eyes to close. Drake smiled, recognizing the gesture as a hangover, a state that Drake had seen most of the troupe in at one time or another. The archer stretched his arms out, his bony fingers working out the small knots that he felt in first his bow arm, and then his drawing arm. A couple of daggers being set on the table next to him made him look up at Locke and lift an eyebrow.

"You'll be needing some sort of weapon when you leave the district. I've seen you training with a sword. I suggest you take these old blades of mine, and avoid looking like an archer. You'll look more like a cityman, once you get your scar covered up. Only those who look close at your hands will see your calluses." Drake smiled a little at Locke, and continued to knead at his muscles.

"I can manage myself without weapons, actually. Zidane can vouch for it. My kicks aren't much to sneer at." Locke lifted an eyebrow at that, and Drake felt that he'd finally gotten rid of all the knots. "There was a monster in Gizamaluke's Grotto that confused me, set me against my friends. I didn't use my arrows against them. I used my body. I bloodied Zidane's nose with just a kick. In Burmecia, I fought Anastasia. I didn't use my arrows then, either. I don't know where I learned to fight like that, really. My body just...moved." Drake really was confused, when he thought on it. He'd never taken any martial arts lessons as a kid, and the techniques he used were far too smooth and practiced for it to have just been a simple matter of luck.

Locke simply stared at Drake for a moment, before their small staring contest was interrupted by the kettle whistling softly. The old thief stood to pour the water into the mugs, ignoring Zidane's groan of pain at the noise. Drake shoved the mug that Locke had put the extra herbs into towards his friend, taking one of the others for himself. He sipped it, and sighed a little, his body relaxing.

"Sounds like a skill you might have learned before losing your memory. One's body can remember things as well as one's mind." Drake hummed a little at that, his eyes focusing on a deep cut on the wooden table as he thought. There was a lot that was confusing him, lately. The scent of baking bread wafted through the house from the opened shutter, and that got Zidane sitting up enough to drink his tea.

"You forgot an instance where you used kicks instead of your bow." Drake blinked at Zidane, looking mildly surprised. "In Alexandria, when that beast smashed me into the wall. You managed to kick it off the stairs. I commented that I was glad that you hadn't kicked me that hard in the grotto." Drake tilted his head to the side a little. From their dash down the steps to when he woke up in Pinnacle Rocks was a bit fuzzy. When he stated that, Locke blinked, and Zidane smirked a little, though there was a little worry in his eyes.

"Did you hit your head between then and now?" Drake ran his fingers through his hair, and paused as he felt a pair of scars. "What is it?"

"I've got more than one scar on my head. I thought I'd only have one." He dropped his hand and looked to Locke. "I did hit my head pretty hard not long ago." Zidane frowned at that, obviously thinking.

"And that's the only time I've known where you hit your head, though it's possible that you did the same just before Blank and I found you in the Theatre District that first time. Your head wasn't bleeding, though..." Drake frowned at that, and drained the last of his tea before standing.

"Well, regardless, I should get moving. It takes a long while to get from one district to the next. I'll be back after dark, likely." He turned to go out the door, paused, and grabbed the daggers with a small smile to Locke. "Wouldn't hurt to have these. Might confuse anyone thinking I'm an archer." Locke grinned at the smart archer, but stopped him as he was about to leave.

"Take the cape by the door. It's going to rain again today." Drake looked to his left, and grabbed the leather garment before disappearing out the door. Locke chuckled again, and set to making more tea. "Having him around is like having a son around, only I'm not related to him." Zidane smirked at Locke, and accepted another mug of tea.

"In the troupe, we're all like brothers. We take advice with a grain of salt. I'm surprised he didn't backtalk you, to be honest." Locke hummed a little, drinking his own mug of tea. A smile was hidden behind the mug. No need to tell the young man that he had given Baku the idea for the troupe.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake caught the fresh bread roll that Sarisa tossed to him as he walked past, and lifted it with a grin as he walked past the torches. The leather cape was wrapped around his shoulders to ward off the chill of the morning. As he walked, he heard more and more activity, until he reached the business district, which was in full capacity...Or as full as could be expected with the soldiers patrolling around. One or two glanced at Drake, but he looked like any other young man on the streets. He kept his left arm hidden, having forgone wrapping it. He figured that it would draw a good deal of attention, as he didn't look like he was harmed otherwise. The crowds were hushed, and Drake stopped by the pickle lady as she sat, yelling about her wares, her eyes covered by cloth.

"Grandma Pickle? Are you alright?" The old woman jumped as Drake spoke, and he reached out a hand to gently place on her arm, letting her know where he was. She turned to look at him as they heard a soldier from Alexandria shouting. Drake stiffened at her words, and the old pickle woman grabbed his arm as he started to turn.

"Rejoice! For you are now a part of the Alexandrian Empire!" Drake growled as the woman shouted it again and again, and noticed others nearby glaring as well. One of the woman's friends quickly dragged her down from the raised area.

"At least some of them have a sense of tact," Drake growled before turning back to Grandma Pickle. The old woman had a frown on her face, and Drake calmed himself, seeing by how much blood there was seeping into the bandages around her eyes that she was likely blinded. "Grandma, you should be resting, with that injury." The frown turned into a slight smile, and she patted Drake's arm just above where her other hand was.

"You're a good lad, Drake, but this is my only way to make money. My son...My son was killed by one of those mages, and my husband is of no use." Drake's eyes softened, thinking back to the game. There had been a nameless old man just in front of the aircab station that had lamented losing his only son. Drake now saw that that man must have been Grandma Pickle's husband.

"What of his wife?" Grandma Pickle chuckled a little, a small smile of hope. Drake didn't even know when he first started to call her Grandma Pickle, but it had certainly stuck. Everyone else called her Old Margaret.

"Recovering from childbirth. The poor dear went into labor just before the attack. Thank the gods that she and her son are safe." Drake's eyes widened a bit. He'd forgotten about that comment in the game. He knew the old woman's family, and so they weren't a vague mention to him. They were people he knew the faces of, the way they laughed, and what made them do so.

"Gods all bless. Give Sharon my congradulations and condolences." Grandma Pickle nodded, and Drake patted her hand before moving off, his brow creased just a little with concern for the old woman. He moved through the crowd, finding his way to Dragoos' shop.

The armory was thankfully still intact, though the shops to either side had substantial damage. The supply shop was in the process of being taken down, so Drake knew that that was one building that was going to have to be completely rebuilt. The hefty shopkeeper greeted the archer softly, and leaned over the counter to mutter to the archer, a hand held up to keep people from reading his lips.

"Been wonderin' where you got to. I've jacked prices up on account o' not wantin' t'sell anythin' to th' Alexandrians, but s'long as y'don't tell anyone, I'll give y' a big discount." A faint smile was the only sign that Drake had understood. Dragoos was a good man, and sold good leather wares.

"I'm in need of a good bracer, one that'll cover my whole forearm." The archer moved his cloak just enough to let the shopkeeper see the scar that spread across the young human's left forearm.

The shopkeeper hummed a little thoughtfully, and went to look through his wares in the back. The Alexandrian soldiers nearby eyed him, and Drake glanced over at them and gave them a thin, polite smile, as they had expected. Though he did hear one of them whisper that it was a shame that he lived in Lindblum and now likely hated all Alexandrians. It seemed he had gained yet another admirer.

Dragoos soon returned, and handed Drake a bracer to try on, and the archer was subtly careful to not reveal his forearm until it was covered by the leather. The object latched on the far side of his arm, so that it covered his new scar and still didn't get caught by his bowstring. Most others who got this sort of design claimed that the buckle-like latches just didn't get in the way.

"That one's one that I was workin' on when the attack happened. The other half of the pair flew int' the fire, so I was wonderin' on how I was gonna sell it." Drake smiled, and held up his other hand, the leather of the fingerless glove matching the bracer for color.

"I only needed the one, so that's good for me. How much?" Dragoos flicked a glance to the soldiers, who quickly went about their own business, one of them loudly exclaiming that they were late for their watch. Drake breathed a sigh of relief once they were out the door.

"100 gil. Half the set, half the price." Drake dug in his coin pouch and pulled out a small handful, and found one of his 100 gil coins. He handed the coin to Dragoos with a small smile, and then turned to head out of the shop, waving a little. "Drake." The archer turned to look back. "Be careful. The breeze on the wind carries word of danger." The young man's eyes widened a little before he relaxed, and waved again, showing that he understood.

The archer looked around the ruined square before heading down the alleyway to Torres's shop, taking in the burnt state of the statue the square was built around. Where it had once had a domed top covering the clock face, the mechanism of the Market Square clock was open to the elements, and the water that had once spilled from just under the clock faces was still and dark. Soot darkened the once-white stone, making the archer frown a little before he paid attention to where he was going.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

**End notes:** Okay, so this chapter isn't as blocky as I initially thought it was. XD More than a few breaks, but they're reasonable ones. I'll be getting on with the plot soon, I promise. The next chapter is more of Drake wandering around town, but after that, I'll get on with the plot again.

_**Read and review, please! Oh, and enjoy!**_


	8. Age of Oppression

**Authoress' Note: ** Okay, I am so very sorry it took so long to get this chapter out! I had a mix of writer's block, classes, work, and hijacked muse working against me. Many thanks to my boyfriend, who sent me a link to some music that got my muse for this story working again. No thanks at all to my wonderful RP group, whose fault it is that my muse was hijacked, no matter how fascinating the new story I was working on is. ...They really are wonderful people, though. XD

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise. I do own Drake, and a few of the characters I've mentioned in this chapter. Even I'm not sure which ones, sometimes. If it's a name from the franchise, though, it's not my character.

**Chapter 8: **Age of Oppression

Torres looked up as he heard someone enter his shop, and eyed the young man warily as he reeled from the heat coming off the forge. He frowned, not recognizing the young man. The stranger wiped the sweat that had instantly popped up on his forehead and looked around, a look of relief on his face. He noticed the wary look that Torres was sending him and seemed to be a bit amused.

"Is that how you greet friends, Torres?" The old synthesist blinked at the young man, and leaned forwards to take a closer look at him. The look of amusement turned into a grin as the old man started to smile.

"Drake, lad it's good to see you!" The young man stepped up to the counter and leaned on it. "What on Gaia have you been up to?" The archer undid his new bracers, revealing his new scar. "Ooh, now that's type of wound I've seen before. I was afraid that weapon of yours would break soon, when I worked with it." Drake quickly covered up his scar as he heard the curtain move. "That's a good bracer, though. Dragoos's craftsmanship, unless I miss my guess." Drake smiled and nodded, and then looked at his bracer and glove a bit thoughtfully.

"It's good, but with all the trouble that's going on, I think I need more than simple leather." Drake glanced towards the man that had entered, and relaxed a little as he recognized him as an off-duty soldier that he knew had little love for Alexandria. The man nodded to the archer and waited for his turn, though he kept an eye on the alleyway so that he could warn them if an Alexandrian soldier started down the way.

"It might take you a while to get the supplies you need for a coating like I gave your bow." Drake frowned a little and drummed his fingers as he thought.

"You do them in sequence, right? I'll be in town for a while, anyhow. I've new boots and clothes being worked on as well." Drake had gotten a good deal of gil while traveling, and wasn't above looting dead soldiers, as disgusting as the task had been. They had no need for money any longer, though he did leave two coins with each body, remembering a legend from his youth, of folk having to buy their way into the underworld.

Torres nodded, and found a scrap of paper to write ingredients on. Drake lifted it with a smile to him as he headed out the door. He paused once he was outside, and read over the piece of paper before tucking the scrap into his pouch. He strolled along and paused as he saw someone moving through the crowd that he could swear he'd met in Lindblum Grand Castle. He tilted his head to the side and slipped around the crowd, keeping an eye on the old man he was trying to meet up with.

The old man stepped into a house, and Drake waited for a moment before slipping in as well, glancing around to make sure that there weren't any Alexandrians in the area. There were none, but the old man that Drake had been following had noticed. Drake pulled his Stellazio from his pouch and bowed slightly as he showed it to them.

"It's good to see you're safe, Minister Artania. I worried when I saw the destruction, whether you and the regent were safe." The old man chuckled a little, and Drake tucked the metal feather away as he straightened.

"Drake. I'm glad you're safe, though I don't know how you've managed to hide from the invaders so well, though. I've heard them speak on you as though you were a ghost. Cleyra and Alexandria in the same day, and then gone without a trace. They're only looking for you here cause they had no idea where you were." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms a little.

"So it's more of a casual search?" The man nodded, and Drake grinned. "Good thing I'm hiding in the last place they thought of." Artania blinked at Drake, a look of understanding crossing his face.

"Don't tell me..." Drake chuckled at him, and uncrossed his arms with an amused look on his face. "You're staying in the garden?"

"Staying with an old friend, actually. As is someone that is as wanted as I am." Drake lifted a hand until it was level with how tall Dagger was. Artania blinked for a moment before his eyes bugged, apparently understanding what Drake meant.

"She is safe?" Drake nodded, his smile fading just a touch at Artania's hushed voice. "Oh, thank goodness. The regent was quite worried that her mother had harmed her." Drake's face became stern for a moment, and Artania stiffened.

"A part of her magic was taken from her. She hasn't told us what part, but she seems to feel the loss." Artania frowned, and Drake glanced to the window. "I think it would be easier on us all if the soldiers looked for me elsewhere." Artania looked to the window as well.

"Perhaps I could have rumors spread of you being seen in other towns...It should be enough to keep them from noticing you. Certainly should keep them from looking for you in the slums." Drake nodded a little, and sighed.

"I have a few more errands to run before I head back down." Artania frowned a little, and Drake glanced at him with a small smile. "If you want, I can figure out how to get her to her uncle. You'll have to give me a few days, though." Artania nodded, and turned to look at the man that he'd been speaking to before. The man looked a bit surprised.

"You gave the lord more information than I had to offer, just by walking in the door." Drake smiled, recognizing the man as being Locke's replacement. The archer tugged on his bangs just a little as a gesture of respect and slipped out the door again, blending into the crowd. Lindblum had lost a great deal of information when Locke had retired. Though by the way Drake had seen Bartz speaking with the man before, it seemed as though the old man was teaching his chosen student.

The boy was good at what he did already. More than once, Drake had spotted the boy slip some coin from the pocket of a stuck-up refugee to slide it into the hand of a battered refugee with only rags to their name. If not for Locke's influence, it was entirely likely that the boy would have been simply stealing from the refugees and keeping the coin to himself.

As the archer passed a couple of Alexandrian soldiers, he heard one speak to the other, sounding confused. Drake knew the answer why. It was the same in Lindblum as it was where he had grown up.

"Regent Cid lost the war. Why don't they face the truth?" The answer to that was that until the hearts of the people are defeated, no war is lost. There will always be those who see it as their duty to rebel against invaders, to keep their families and their businesses safe. Wars didn't end cleanly. The armies may be forced to lay down their arms, but that only means that the fighting changes.

The aircab station in the Business District was still up and running, and civilians were getting on and off of it, so Drake slipped onto it, determined to head to the Theatre District. The trip wasn't as quiet and peaceful as he was used to, but that was as much because he was on a midday cab, which he tended to avoid.

The cab was noisy, with squabbling women, and crying children. Drake stayed towards the entrance, looking over the city. There had been fires, but the rain had put out the flames. Everywhere, he could see people doing their best to salvage their lives. The Industrial District was completely unrecognizable, along the top of the city. The only reason Drake knew this was because he had been on this route so many times that he knew where to look. There weren't even any people that his archer's sight could catch amidst the rubble.

"Theatre District." Drake lurched a little as the cab stopped, and slipped out the door as soon as he could, looking about to see what had changed. He wasn't the only one, either. There were folk that he recognized as being actors and residents of the district looking about with lost looks on their faces.

Drake waited for a few others to head out the door before moving, steeling himself to see the destruction. He didn't stop in the doorway as a couple of others did, but he did look around. There were stones from the street missing, which made one or two people stumble, but Drake was careful of where he put his feet. He started down the street towards where his home was, suddenly hoping that it wasn't completely destroyed. Shingles and tiles were ripped from buildings all over, and the railings that were there to keep people from falling from one street onto another were broken in places. The greenery that had been present before had turned into scattered leaves and broken wood.

There were more soldiers in this district than in the others that Drake had been so far, but they seemed to be there more to keep an eye on things than to look for anything or anyone. Still, Drake couldn't risk going into the hideout. They would be looking for the Tantalus Troupe. If the rest were in town, they were hiding as well. Yet...he could still go and see how it fared.

Drake walked around the corner to the hideout, and paused as he saw the destruction. The hideout had just barely managed to avoid complete destruction. Lowell stood at the top of the stairs that had once led down to a theatre he'd performed in, looking lost.

The hideout was a mess. Boards were missing from the face of it, and most of the roof was gone. There were even stones missing from the façade, and one of the doors hung drunkenly off of its hinges. There had been a fire there earlier, too, but it didn't seem that it had been terribly big, as there wasn't too much damage to the building. Perhaps a mage had lit fire to it just before getting sucked up into the summon he'd seen. Being so close to the area that was absolutely torn apart, it was possible that the suction had kept the fire from getting too out of hand.

Drake sighed and ran his fingers through his hair as he looked around again. The walkway in this area was battered and destroyed, too, which made for perilous walking, but there were a few people about, aside from himself and Lowell. A few Alexandrian soldiers were near, though most of them were watching the actor. Only one was close enough to speak with Drake. After a moment's hesitation, he walked up to her left side, and leaned a bit on what remained of the railing, hesitating before putting his full weight on it, to make surer that it could actually hold him.

"There was no need to take things this far." The Alexandrian soldier had taken her helmet off, staring with shocked dismay at the damage to the city. "I pledged my loyalty to Queen Brahne in order to protect Alexandria. Not to kill people." Drake hesitated for a moment before setting a hand on her shoulder. She jumped and turned to look at him, only to see his pitying look.

"Rulers don't care about the desires of anyone but themselves." The soldier bowed her head, running a glove over her helmet. "The best will consider the desires of their subjects, if only to keep their support. They may actually care at first, but... The worst simply see their military as a tool, and war as a means to an end." The soldier shook a little, and Drake frowned a bit as he saw a tear slipping down her cheek.

"Wars should be between army and army, not against civilians. Burmecia should never have happened. Cleyra shouldn't have happened...What reason did the queen have to attack them?" Drake glanced around, and saw that they were the only ones on the street. Lowell had run off, as well as his groupies. The edge of destruction was someplace that it seemed that few went, so he doubted that more people would come walking by. He hesitated for a moment before removing his hand and leaning against the railing again, sighing.

"...Burmecia was hell." The soldier looked at him in shock at his easy comment, and leaned forwards a little to look at his face better. "I was there. I went there to help. I fought against your comrades. Killed some of them." The soldier bowed her head.

"They're other soldiers. They aren't my friends. The ones sent to Burmecia were racist. The same can be said of those who were sent to Cleyra. Every country has a blend of people. No one race is dominant." Drake nodded, and unbuckled his bracer, scratching at his scar a bit. "That scar..." Drake smirked a little. It seemed as though he was winning the trust of this woman. Perhaps she would make a good spy for Locke.

"My bow broke as I fled from Alexandria." The soldier gasped, her eyes wide. Drake turned his head and smiled gently at her. "I was helping a noblewoman to escape. One that you yourself would protect, if given the chance." The soldier's face went pale, and her blue eyes widened.

"I'd heard rumors that the queen held her daughter captive...I hadn't thought it was true, though." Drake nodded, and sighed. "I cannot imagine that Princess Garnet holds ill will against her mother...though I am more in doubt of the queen's goodwill towards her child. She hasn't been the same since the king died..." Drake bowed his head, remembering when that news had reached his ears the first time.

The king's death had been claimed to have been a sudden illness that not even the royal physician could stop. To Drake, it had smelled of poison, and it still did. Queen Brahne had been said to be inconsolable, though, so it was far from likely that she had been the one to poison him. Drake's money was on Kuja, as he was the one who had the most to gain from the man's death. A grieving woman was far easier to manipulate than one who had a stable hold on reality.

"You are the one that they fear." Drake turned his head to the soldier as she leaned on the railing next to him, her hands together. He'd read her right, her loyalty to her queen had been broken. "Why are you here? And why speak to me?" Drake smiled a little, looking to the destruction before them.

"I'm here because this is my home." The woman blinked at him, and Drake gestured to the building behind them. "My brothers and I live in that building. I came to see if anything was damaged." Drake paused a look of pain in his eyes. "We were lucky. Those in the Industrial District..." Pain filled the woman's eyes as well.

"This type of war...It's barbaric." Drake nodded, and sighed a little. "I wish...I wish there was something that I could do, to make up for my part in all this." Her voice was soft as she looked down, her shoulders drooping. Drake glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering for once if she was just acting this way to get information from him, but the look of despair on her face was true.

"There...is something, if you feel truly bad about this." The woman stared at him for a moment, and Drake turned back to the destruction. If he concentrated, he could see the limp, bloated bodies of the dead. He avoided doing so. The air was far from what it normally was, thick with the scent of rotting flesh. "It amounts to treason against Alexandria, however." The woman bowed her head next to him, looking down at her gloved hands and her helmet between her feet.

"...Alexandria is no longer the land it once was. When I think of my homeland, I now think of blood. Lindblum has always been a place of technology, of places far from itself." Drake smiled a little at that. If only she knew just how far some people in the city had come... "It's said that you can get the food of any culture here, if you know where to look. Even places from other continents." Drake tilted his head to the side at that, wondering about where she'd heard that.

"It's the most diverse of any city I can recall visiting, for sure." Drake tapped his hands on the railing, and pushed off of it. "Regardless, it's about time to eat. Are you off duty?" Drake turned the smile he knew made most girls blush on the soldier, who, obligingly, turned bright red.

"Ahh...no, I'm not on duty. Why?" Drake smiled and started to walk along the street away from the destruction. He paused and looked back at her, his thumbs tucked into his belt.

"There's a very good restaurant that I know of. It's on the mostly undamaged side of the district." The girl blushed and picked up her helmet, stammering excuses. Drake merely lifted an eyebrow at her, as if asking if she really intended on balking at eating a meal with him. She finally stopped trying to excuse herself, and trailed after him.

Drake led her through the district, pausing at the house that was acting as the district barracks for the Alexandrians, and amused himself as she changed by talking to some of the locals. It seemed as though most of the Alexandrian soldiers that were housed in this makeshift barracks weren't too bad, though their commander seemed to be one of those with a superiority complex. Being in charge of people likely didn't help any.

When the woman came back out, Drake lifted an eyebrow at her. She was wearing a simple dress. It was a warm shade of brown, and was the sort that most people brought to tailors to get it tucked, but other than that it was a bit shapeless on her, it flattered her. Or rather, it would, if she had a belt to tie at her waist. Drake thought of giving her his sash, but...well, it was currently covering up his pouch.

"I just heard that the place that I was planning on bringing you to hasn't opened its doors again yet. So there's another place that isn't too far from here that's got good food as well." The woman blinked at him, looking a bit bemused. Drake started to walk, and glanced back at her, lifting an eyebrow at her. "Well, you coming?" The woman trotted a bit to catch up with him.

Drake actually felt a little guilty by using this magnetic sort of thing against her, but...Well, he figured that Locke could use an ear in the army. Lindblum had turned their eyes from Alexandria because they had gone to Burmecia's aid, but that just meant that they had to listen better. And Locke had been retired just when they needed him most.

The restaurant that Drake led the woman to was one that Zidane had brought him to shortly after the archer had joined the Tantalus troupe. There weren't too many patrons there currently, and those that were there were almost all nursing a mug of some sort of alcohol. Drake led his soldier friend to a back corner, and a serving girl started towards them with menus when she saw Drake shake his head. She smiled a bit, knowing that he likely knew the menu by heart.

They chatted idly about neutral topics for a while, and Drake smiled at the serving girl as she set two mugs of tea in front of them. He ordered the special of the day for both of them, and pulled out a bit of wood that he'd started whittling while waiting for the aircab in the Garden District. He simply turned it over in his hand, his eyes on it as he tried to figure out what he was going to turn it into.

"You mentioned that there was something that I could do to help the people of Lindblum..." Drake glanced up at the soldier as she sounded almost impatient, and hid his smile by sipping at his tea. He hummed a little as the hot liquid soothed some of his nerves.

"Lindblum needs information on what's going on inside Alexandria's army." The woman frowned a little at his words, but didn't look insulted. "If you can somehow get word to a friend that I'll point out to you later, without any of your garrison noticing, I'm sure you'll be rewarded down the line. Perhaps if you immigrate to Lindblum, folk would find you a place where you could live in peace." The woman frowned slightly down at her tea. Drake could tell that she was thinking hard. "And likely even those that you care for as well." Drake knew that he could make no promises, but it seemed like a reasonable thing for Locke to agree to. Or, if not Locke, an official of Lindblum.

Their food came, then, and Drake blinked as he saw the pastry-covered mounds. The serving girl, seeing his confusion, grinned at him. "Pasties. They are..._were_ more common in the Industrial district. Many of the engineers that could run got here. We're making them to help them feel more at home." Drake nodded his understanding and took a bite out of his, thinking.

"There's a boy that some refugees took all the way to the Garden District. Both of his parents were in the Industrial District just before the attack." The serving girl looked concerned, but thoughtful. "I believe his name's Mid." The young woman frowned worriedly.

"I think I may have heard someone asking after a boy by that name...I'll ask around, and see who it was. Where can I find you once I...?" Drake smiled a little, and the serving girl shook her head with a small smile. "Right. Forgot who it is you know. I'll send word along." The soldier tilted her head a little, looking confused. Drake simply gestured for her to eat her pasty, motioning that he'd explain later.

The food easily distracted the soldier, as the archer had guessed. After living off of travel rations off and on, he had to remind himself not to eat like he'd gone through a famine, himself. He could only imagine the type of food she had to eat on a regular basis. He ended up buying her another pasty and a loaf of the local bread, though all he had was the one pasty.

"Such a great change from the food I'd get in the barracks...I think I ate too much." Drake chuckled at the woman as he led her from the restaurant. Still, the smile that he'd managed to get on her face stayed, which was a good thing. The slight shadow that had been in her eyes because of what she'd seen was still there, but he'd managed to remind her that life continued. Like how Locke had reminded him.

As they walked along the street, Drake caught the eye of a friend of his that he knew reported to Locke, and made a handsign that the woman he was walking with would hopefully report to him. The man, the leader of a small group of informants, looked a little startled, but nodded, showing that he would willingly handle the spy. Drake leaned over to whisper in the soldier's ear, and she blushed, making everyone around them think that he was flirting with her. The soldier's eyes flicked to Drake's friend, and she blushed more.

"Alright. I'll write a note when I have something, and hide it in the shop next to the barracks. I'll arrange it with the shopkeeper later. I'm hoping that she'll be more accepting of me than the others. ...Plus, that man's pretty cute..."

Drake chuckled at the extra comment that she made, and the soldier blushed more before looking away. He set his hand on her shoulder, and she jumped a little before looking up at him with wide eyes. He smiled at her, and then took his hand off her shoulder as the clock built into the Tantalus hideout chimed.

"I should be getting back to where I'm staying. It'll be dark there soon, if not already." He grinned a little sheepishly. "I'm not exactly trusted to keep myself out of trouble at night. Too many folk that would see how slender I am and assume that I'm an easy target." The soldier cracked a smile at that, and gestured towards the aircab station as they passed it.

"I can walk back on my own. It wouldn't do for you to get hurt." Drake nodded to her comment and walked into the station. He blinked as he saw a familiar driver, and grinned a little.

"Last call for Garden District rail!" Drake hurried to board the aircab, along with one or two other people that he recognized as being refugees that had done the same as him, coming back to take a look at how damaged the district was. One or two of them blinked at the archer as he slid into a spot next to a window, but they didn't say anything. As far as they knew, he'd been out on the plateau training.

The archer stared out the window as the aircab headed to some of the lower districts, ignoring the people that came and went, just as they ignored him. A few of the people who boarded at the market district were very chatty with each other, but not towards anyone else.

'_City folk...So many people around them, yet they feel more alone than folk from villages...'_ Drake yawned a little as he stood, grabbing hold of a rail as the aircab lurched and settled. He wasn't the first person standing, but he certainly wasn't the last. He was, however, one of the last people off of the aircab.

Drake waited by where the aircab docked for the night, and smiled at the startled driver. The man glanced about nervously, then relaxed as he saw that no Alexandrian soldiers were about.

"They don't feel safe in this district, apparently." The driver sighed at Drake's observation, then chuckled, looking more awake all of a sudden. As Drake had thought, the shadows were lengthening in the Garden District. Men that could afford it were heading into the taverns already, and Drake saw fresh-looking soldiers starting to patrol.

"The watch just changed...Earlier than normal." Drake nodded as he walked alongside the driver in the streets. "Men heading t'drinking houses earlier than normal, too." Drake frowned a little as he considered what could happen from that.

"Hope they keep peaceful. Last thing this district needs is a riot." The driver nodded, and sighed. Both of them could see nervous looks on the refugees. Many of them looked as though they hadn't been able to find a decent place to sleep the previous night. "Is there a church or something that could be opened?" Drake got a startled look from his friend. "Just so that they would have a dry place to rest. No one should be forced to stay outdoors. A tent, or a shelter..."

"A smart idea, lad." Drake jumped a little at Locke's voice, and turned a little to look back at him. The old man smiled slightly at him, and continued to walk alongside him. "I've been trying to find such a place for many of the refugees. I've made the poorer folk a priority. Those with money will be leaving soon anyhow, as soon as they figure out what's what." Drake relaxed a little at Locke's explanation, and nodded.

"I did some asking while I was up at the Theatre District. It seems someone's been asking after Mid. I'm hoping it's a relative." Locke's eyebrows disappeared under his bandanna.

"You weren't just sight-seeing, then. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. Anything else that may surprise me?" Drake nodded, and tapped the side of his nose with a finger. Locke rolled his eyes, reading it as a sign that he would explain later. "Have you eaten, or are you hungry?" Drake shook his head a bit.

"I ate before boarding the aircab. I'll be hungry in a while, though." He grinned. "I've found that the longer I've traveled and walked around, the more often I get hungry." Locke chuckled, and patted the archer on the back, nearly knocking him onto his face.

"That an' you're yet a young man. Come. Keep me company whilst I take my evening meal." Drake stumbled a bit as Locke clapped a hand to his shoulder and pulled him along by that simple grip alone, his eyes widening a bit. He hadn't been aware that the old man had such a strong grip.

Not that Drake was resisting, though. He didn't want to be rude. Especially not after Locke had agreed to take Drake and his friends in for the time being. And he could guess that the old man wanted whatever information Drake could give him as soon as possible.

Locke pulled Drake down side streets and alleyways until they reached a small building with that looked like a house until Locke opened the door and pulled Drake in after him. The windows were nailed shut with planks across it, and when Drake squinted, he could just barely make out magical symbols etched into them, worn away by the rain and the years passing by. The remains of a signpost hung drunkenly from the side of the building, as if no one cared to fix it, and hadn't for quite some time.

Inside of the building was just as run-down, but in a much cozier way. The wood bar that crossed the front room was stained with who-knew-what, and pitted and carved by countless knives. There were a few hand-braided flower wreaths on the walls, and they looked fairly fresh. The scent of the stew that was brewing was enough to make Drake wonder if he could stand a bit more food. The people sitting on the gently worn stools turned when the door opened, and smiled at Locke. They weren't the sort that seemed to have caused the damage, for sure, so Drake assumed that the place had once been much more popular than it was now.

Drake looked askance at a stool he was offered, before deciding that it was in fair enough condition and sat on it next to Locke, tucked off in a corner. As normal, Locke sat with his back against the wall, so he could watch everything going on in the small tavern. Drake didn't mind, as it meant that anyone walking in wouldn't get a clear look at his face.

Without Locke even having to order anything, food came. Drake accepted a mug of some tea with a small smile as thanks, glad that they hadn't given him anything strong. He didn't like the way his head felt when he drank. Locke tucked in for a while, easing his hunger before pausing to take a swig. He then turned to look at Drake, his eyes examining the archer. Drake understood the gesture, and set his mug down before speaking softly, but not leaning towards the old man.

"I managed to get you some ears inside a barracks." Locke's eyebrows disappeared under his bandanna again. "One of those women soldiers commented on the devastation from right next to the hideout. I struck up a conversation with her. Her loyalty to Alexandria's broken. I told her that she may have a place here in the future. I don't think that'd be a hard promise to keep." Locke smiled a little and nodded, showing that he approved. "I signaled to one of your boys in that district that he'd have the handling of her, unless you organized it otherwise. Reeve, I think it was." Locke nodded again, approving that choice as well.

Drake drank some more of his tea, trying to decide whether it was alright to tell Locke the next bit or not. It had been a little bit of a gamble, after all, but Drake figured that the connection had to have been made, and soon. Locke ate a slightly stale roll, using it to mop up some of the stew he'd been given.

"I found Artania in the market district. I hinted to him that Dagger was alright, and in the city. He seemed to be very relieved." Locke shot Drake a tense look, and the archer, looked at his mug again. "He was meeting with your replacement at the time." Locke turned his eyes back to his food again, chewing not only his food, but also the information that Drake had just given him.

"He isn't likely to give that information away, then. Or that you're safely in town. You took quite the risk on that one, lad. He could have easily handed you over to the soldiers as a token of peace." Drake winced, but nodded. He hadn't thought of that, but it had been entirely possible. "You did a good day's work for me, though. I thank you. The girl may not have much of importance to report, and I don't expect to get many gems from her, but it's better to have little to report than nothing at all." Drake smiled a bit at the praise.

Drake couldn't help but feel that for the little group that Zidane led, he had to be the best cut out for gathering information. Locke had given him more than a few lessons on how to read people, and while he had to work hard to blend into a crowd thanks to the odd magnetism his personality had, he was able to convince people that he was trustworthy far easier than the others.

Locke was soon done with his food, and set some gil on the counter before standing and gesturing for Drake to follow him. The archer slid thirty gil onto the counter next to his mug, figuring that the tea had been worth much less than that, but the tip would be well appreciated. The place seemed to be lacking much of the income it once had.

Drake had to trot to catch up with Locke in the street, and yawned a little as he trailed after the older man through alleys and side streets. He blinked as the old thief stopped at a warehouse, and his eyebrows went up as he looked in the door. Several families were sitting inside, the children running around playing while the parents talked about how they were going to get back on their feet. None of them noticed the two men peering in through the door.

Locke pulled Drake away from the building before they were noticed, and chuckled at the small smile on the archer's face. "It's been empty for a while. I saw no harm in letting those poor folk in out of the rain." Drake nodded, and looked up at the sky. His smile slipped a little as he saw the funnel the city made around the Garden District.

The rim of the city was broken, and a couple plumes of smoke somehow still rose from the Industrial District. The houses near them were patched as well as they could be, though it was slightly shoddy and wearing. The houses above were in dire need of repair, or, in some cases, replacement. It was odd, to see the buildings around him so much nicer than the buildings so far above, when it had been the opposite during the Hunt Festival.

A frown crossed Drake's face. Had it really only been a couple of weeks since he had won the festival? It had felt so much longer, in part thanks to how little he'd been able to relax during that time. And so much had changed for him. He'd been lovesick for Anastasia, only to find that what he knew of her was simply a mask to cover her...He wouldn't quite call it psychotic, though she did seem more than slightly unhinged. He didn't really know what to think of her anymore, now that he had some distance between the incident and himself.

A hand on his shoulder brought Drake back to reality, and he blinked at Locke, who was looking at him concernedly. The archer managed a sheepish smile, and the old thief shook his head with a sigh, and led him back to the house next to the bakery. Little Mid was playing with Bartz in front of the bakery, along with several other children, many of whom were refugees.

Sarisa glanced up from the counter as they passed by, and the working woman set a fresh roll on the counter with a nod to Drake, showing that she was giving it to him. Drake smiled to her and accepted it with a nod, telling himself that he'd do some chores in the morning to help her out, so she could take a brief break. It couldn't be easy, to raise such a boisterous boy and work all by her lonesome.

The roll was fresh out of the oven, so the archer had to toss it between his hands until it was cool enough to eat. He trailed after Locke into the building, and blinked as he saw Zidane slouched over the table, looking disgruntled and bored. Drake chuckled as he noticed his friend was spacing out, and plopped down on the stool in front of him, ripping apart the roll to wave half in front of him.

As he expected, that got Zidane's attention, and that half of the roll suddenly disappeared. Drake laughed as he handed over the other half of the roll, which also promptly disappeared. The monkey-tailed man's stomach continued to growl, now that it had something in it.

"So I'm guessing you were in here all day long." Zidane nodded as he watched Locke out of the corner of his eye. "I headed up to the Theatre District." That got Zidane's attention. "The hideout's just fine, considering how close it was. The stairs next to it? Dead end." Zidane's face paled a little. There were kids that used the hideout as a place to hide during storms, so it would stand to reason they'd go there during the attack.

"How much damage? A few shingles...?" Drake shook his head, and stretched, cracking his neck and shoulders. "That sounded like it hurt." Drake shrugged, which got a series of cracks going down his back. Zidane winced, and Drake thought for a moment before stretching more. Even Locke winced at that.

"Ooh...Didn't know I was that stiff. And no, the hideout's needing some serious repairs. The buildings around here are actually in better condition than most of the ones up there." Locke and Zidane both looked startled at that. The Garden District was still set in many people's minds as being the worst kept district in all of Lindblum. "I don't doubt that some of the districts will be repaired quickly, though. I saw rubble getting taken care of in the Artisan District already." Locke nodded. That was one of the wealthier districts, so it would stand to reason that people would be clearing that out as soon as possible.

"The Theatre District will likely be in poor repair for quite a while," the old thief warned. Drake and Zidane both nodded. They knew that their district, while it was where people went to relax, was one of the poorer districts. It was why their hideout still looked half-built. Actors weren't exactly good at construction.

"I spoke to Minister Artania today, as well. I'll get in touch with him in a couple of days, and see if he hasn't figured out a way to smuggle Dagger in to see her uncle." Zidane looked startled now, and Drake smiled a little. "Locke's already chewed me out for not thinking before I went to talk with him." Zidane nodded, though Drake could tell he couldn't figure out why. He didn't think like Locke did. He preferred to head at things in a straight-forward manner. Drake did the same, but at least he could see the other way.

"And in the meantime, we still need to chill here." Zidane groaned and rubbed at his head with both hands. "Man, all this doing nothing is going to drive me insane. I can't even go out to run errands for someone because Dagger and Vivi are nearby and I need to guard them." Drake thought for a moment, not noticing that he had pulled out the bit of wood he'd been carving. Locke noticed, though.

"You could do as Drake did, and start to carve something. Your blades are sharper than his belt knife. It doesn't even have to look terribly good." Locke grinned half-heartedly, and Zidane tilted his head to the side as he considered it.

"It doesn't have to look like something you see in the artisan district." Drake grinned lopsidedly and set his piece on the table, tilting his head to the side. "...I have no idea what I've been carving, to be honest." Zidane and Locke both stared at Drake as he chuckled. Zidane recovered first, and looked closer at it.

"...Maybe a chocobo? It's shaped roughly like one." Drake blinked and turned the piece to look at it from the angle Zidane had seen. "Or maybe a snake lady like that one that charmed you in Gizamaluke's Grotto." Drake shivered at the reminder. Locke noticed, but didn't comment. Drake saw his eyebrow lift from the corner of his eye.

"A lamia? I'd rather never see one of those ever again. Especially after that." Zidane nodded, idly rubbing the side of his head. Drake smiled sheepishly, remembering that he'd kicked his brother hard when he was charmed. "You sure I didn't kick you that hard then?" Zidane shared a smile with him.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

That night, Drake stood by the open shutters, watching the rain falling. He rolled the wood in his hands over and over, occasionally glancing down to carve a curl from the object. It was starting to form into an actual figure, but so far it was mostly formless. There was the beginning of a serpentine tail looping around, but it wasn't clean.

Behind the archer, Zidane snored loudly. He'd gone out with the young men that had taken them out to eat the day before. Again, he'd come back drunk. Drake knew that his brother was trying to relax, but there were better ways to do so. His way of coping was just as dangerous, though. By not stopping, he could easily wear himself out. Zidane's way was just shutting down entirely.

Drake yawned a little, and sheathed his dagger before heading to his cot and laying down, setting the dagger and piece of wood on top of his boots. He linked his fingers behind his head and stared at the stained ceiling. He took a deep breath in, held it, and then let it out, closing his eyes. He had to stop worrying about others. He had problems of his own that he had to think about. He didn't like to think about them, though.

The primary one was whether or not he was going to get back to his parents. His mother had to be worried about him. He had no idea what had happened when he was transported between his basement and a street in the Theatre District. The longer he spent on Gaia, the less he felt like he belonged back with his parents. The world there would have changed so drastically, he likely wouldn't recognize it, and it would be hard for him to readjust, having lived for so long in a much less advanced civilization.

He had long since given up the daydream that this was a coma dream, based off of one of his favorite games. There were far too many things that he could have never thought of. He had never been the most creative person. The Constellato were far and away the most bizarre concept he had encountered. Also, if it was a dream, the streets would always change. He could walk from one point to another and get hopelessly lost if he had his head in the clouds. That was how he'd found some of the better restaurants, actually.

There was also the question of what his presence here would even do. He had already changed the fate of Cleyra, and who knew what sort of ripples that set off. There was something that he could have affected simply by being in Lindblum, but he could never be sure of: Anastasia. There had never been even a hint of her existence in the game. He couldn't help but wonder if it was his fault she'd been taken under the psychopath's wing and turned into as much of a crazed power-hungry killer.

A cough from Zidane as he rolled over made Drake shake his head, chasing away all the doubts that made him worry so much. He rolled onto his side, and willed himself to sleep. There was nothing that he could do at the moment to address these problems, so there was no point in dwelling on them. Doing so would only make him tired and easily stressed in the morning.

Before he knew it, Drake was awake again, blinking at the wall. It was still dark, so he knew he'd woken up when he'd promised himself he would. He sat up with a yawn and tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck. He fumbled around for his shirt and slipped his feet into his old boots, tucking both wood and dagger into his belt as soon as he found it in the dark.

His feet thumped on the ground as he landed at the base of the stairs, and held his hands up with a slight grin as Locke rushed from his room, dagger in hand. The old thief stared at him before sighing and sheathing his dagger again. Drake went and grabbed the bucket from next to the door, and headed out to the pump. It would do him good to get used to lifting that much weight. He was strong with only a few muscles. While that was good for certain things, people were liable to expect him to be able to do things he couldn't with that strength. He'd rather not have one of those things be something his life relied on.

As he thought, he'd managed to get up before Sarisa went to her shed to get her flour. He was huffing and puffing by the time he got the bucket to Locke's back door, and again had to catch his breath. It felt like he hadn't made any progress between the day before and this morning, but he knew that he had to wait for any noticeable difference.

As Drake rested, Locke made tea for them both. By the time the archer's breath had returned, he had a mug of steaming tea in front of him. Locke was drinking his own, his eyes closed. Drake realized suddenly that he had woken his host up by landing as loudly as he had, and winced a bit. Finally, the thief set his mug down, and set a slightly weary but piercing look on the young man in front of him.

"I'm guessing you're up at such an obscene hour for some reason?" Drake winced visibly, sipping his own tea. A distant clock tower chimed four. He glanced towards it, though his eyes only met the wall.

"I want to help Sarisa out. She can't have it easy, raising Bartz and running her business at the same time. Besides, it'll give me something to do today, since I don't plan on running any errands. It'll serve as a way to convince any soldiers that saw me wandering around that I'm a refugee, and I'll get some weight training in." When he looked back at Locke, he saw that the old thief was looking at him oddly. "What?"

"I hadn't thought you'd put that much thought into it. With those points, I think she'd actually let you help." He glanced at the shutter as the sound of a door opening faded through it. "Why don't you go ask?" Drake smiled at Locke before draining the last of his tea and going to do so.

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By noon, Drake was covered in sweat and crouching behind Sarisa's shop, with Bartz, Mid, and few other kids that had jumped in to help. He wasn't breathing as hard as he could have been, but he also wasn't breathing normally. He was crouching with his elbows on his knees while a couple of the kids walked around. It wasn't a cool day, and Sarisa had more customers than normal, which meant more trips to the shed. The shed was actually empty now, and Sarisa was baking up the last rolls and loafs of the day.

Some of the older kids were taking turns wielding an axe that was too big for any of them, chopping firewood for the bakery. More than once, a kid almost fell over backwards, and had to drop the axe to stay on their feet. Maybe it was time for Drake to take over that, just to keep them safe.

Drake had noticed that many of Sarisa's customers were suddenly female, and a couple of Alexandrian soldiers had tittered once when he carried a sack of flour in to set it down near where a couple of the girls from the neighborhood worked at kneading the dough that Sarisa mixed between dealing with customers. He'd even flashed a grin at a few women when he felt like it, but now he was sitting out of sight of the street.

Drake's stomach growled loudly, and he winced a little before standing from his crouch, almost lurching forward onto his face as his legs complained. He really wasn't built for hefting heavy things around. There was a reason he wore light armor and could move fast. He was thin. He had muscles, yes, but most of them were pretty weak despite being visible. His strongest muscles were in his legs, so he'd been trying to use those more than the ones in his arms or his back.

He'd been carrying two sacks at a time, with one held under one arm and another on the opposite shoulder. He'd scolded Bartz and Mid for trying to copy him, and Sarisa had scolded him for carrying two at once. Drake had simply pointed out that she needed the flour quickly, and she'd sighed, giving in. Some of the younger children had to work together just to move one sack, while the older ones carried one by themselves, though some had more trouble with it than others did.

Drake turned as he heard footsteps in the doorway, and he smiled a little at Sarisa, lifting a hand to wipe sweat off his forehead. The baker smiled a bit back at him, and then looked down at Bartz, who had a few flour smudges on him. Mid was hanging back with the other kids, laughing a bit at something.

"Well, you were a right help, Drake. More than half of my customers came because they heard you were helping out here, and bought more than they thought they would. I do believe most will be coming back tomorrow. Once I've sold out, will you come with me to the marketplace? I've got to buy more ingredients before tomorrow." Drake nodded, stumbled a bit, and then glanced down at Mid, who had suddenly attached himself to the archer's leg with a grin.

The archer shortly found himself flat on his front, under a dogpile of children while Sarisa laughed at him. He wheezed as Bartz threw himself on top of the pile with what sounded like an imitation of a battlecry. Another pair of laughs joined hers, and Drake turned his head to see Locke and Zidane doubled over with laughter.

"So glad that I could amuse you," was the irritated wheeze as the archer struggled to free himself from the wriggling mass of giggling children. None of them moved to help him.

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**End Notes:** Yes, I took the title from a Skyrim song. A cover of that is actually what got my muse going again. I haven't played Skyrim, myself, but the music is very pretty. Please no meme jokes.

Read and review!


	9. Staring at the Sun

**Authoress' Notes: **I have, surprisingly, been really motivated to write lately. Lots of things seem to be going good for me. Sorta waiting for the other shoe to drop, if ya know what I mean. Well, aside from the fact that I don't have any hours at work. Eh, gives me more time to concentrate on my schoolwork and writing.

I can definitely say that my sudden outburst of muse can be attributed to finding some really awesome remixes of video game music. Search for 'OCR' or 'Over Clocked Remix' on Youtube. You're bound to find something that you like. I certainly found plenty.

**Disclaimer:**** I do not own the Final Fantasy Franchise. ** I would not be sitting here typing up a fanfiction based on an already existing game. I would be too busy changing one of my original ideas into a game.

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Chapter 9: Staring at the Sun

A dark battlefield, filled with the groans of the dying and the stench of the rotting dead. Soldiers wearing black armor and bearing various types of weapons wandered through the corpses, some ending the groans, others picking up arrows. The sky above was covered in clouds tinged red by the sun beyond it, and the battlefield stretched as far as the eye could see.

This was where Drake found himself, for some reason. One of the black-armored archers walked up to him, and stopped, looking at him with a pitying smile. Drake tore his eyes away from the battlefield to look at the man, his emotions numb. The man blinked his icy blue eyes, and then crouched to pick up an arrow, sliding it into the quiver on his back.

"A newcomer, eh? To have this be your first glimpse...You're unlucky, there. Most see the great hall before they see the field." The man stood again and looked Drake in the eyes.

The man had a set of scars along the right side of his head, raking through his black hair above his ear. He had it brushed across his head from that side to the other, and the hair behind that ear was braided and ended in a few golden beads. For all he appeared to be roughly the same age as Drake, his eyes looked as though he'd been through battle for far longer than either of them had been alive. His goatee was short and well-kept, a dark patch on his tanned skin. His armor was designed specifically for an archer. The harness over his chest and shoulders protected his shoulders without hindering him by going over the leather girdle that acted as armor. He had hard black leather gloves that went up to his biceps, and what looked like broken shackles at his wrists. Attached to his waist was what looked like it should have been a cape, but it had pouches and was obviously a belt. The fabric that hung from that belt was as black as the rest of his armor, including the leather pants, boots, and shinguards. Drake could swear that there was a slight purple sheen to some of his armor.

"It's a good thing that only we of the Sagittarius Stellazio can see you. Some of the older Chosen of the other signs are...ruthless. Until you earn your place on this battlefield, only we archers will be able to see you." Drake blinked at the archer in front of him, and then noticed the familiar metal feather that served him as the buckle to his harness. The archer noticed that, and smiled, for once looking like a man instead of a soldier. "Aye, we're all Chosen here. Including those on the ground."

Drake blinked and looked around again, taking a closer look at the soldiers on the ground. They, too, wore black armor, but there were different tinges to their armor. Members of thirteen different warrior castes were there: lightly armored thieves, red mages, white mages, dancers, scholars, monks, chemists, archers, and summoners, and the heavier armed Dragoons, paladins, and dark knights.

"What...what led to this?" The former Chosen chuckled a bit at Drake's question, and turned to look over the field. There was a bit of pain in his eyes as he looked over the many fallen bodies.

"A war amongst the Constellato, using their armies. The dark knights have died out, and the paladins are on the way. Some of the Chosen want the Constellato to force folk into the job classes. Specifically the paladins and the dark knights. The rest of us...well, no one's keen on forcing folk to do things they aren't meant for. We've been fighting them. They're the strongest two classes, so it's taken all of the rest banding together just to fight them. It doesn't help much that everyone who falls in battle simply gets up the next day to fight again." Drake frowned. That sounded...very familiar to him.

"...Valhalla?" The Chosen snorted with amusement, and turned his head to look at him. Drake swore he could feel himself blush.

"Smart. Not many figure that out for themselves so fast. I see why Lady Maria has been so fascinated by you of late." The man turned, and offered his hand to Drake. "You're reaching a plateau, though. Lady Maria herself isn't actually allowed to help, but the rest of us are. Judging by how surprised you look, I'm guessing I'm the first that has actually bothered to introduce himself to you. You've a skill that's all your own, but to reach as high as you'll need to in the future, you need help from all of us."

Drake hesitated, and then took the man's hand, feeling the ridges of his well-worn glove press against his own hand. When he looked down, all he could see of his own hand was a dark outline, but he got a much better look at the shackles on the other Chosen's wrist. There was a link still attached on his right hand shackle, though it showed signs of having been worked at with tools recently.

"Good. Now, it's time you woke up."

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Drake sat up with a gasp as he woke suddenly staring at the wall at the foot of his cot. He took a deep breath in before running his fingers through his hair as he calmed his breathing. He turned his head as he heard Zidane moving in his own bed, and smiled a bit as his brother sat up, looking a bit groggy.

"Wha's wrong?" Drake shook his head a little, and moved to get dressed, putting on one of his new sets of clothing. Zidane rubbed a hand over his face as he started to wake up.

"Just a weird dream." Drake turned his head to look out the window as the nearest clock struck nine. Drake yawned and tugged his city boots on, and started to head downstairs before a thought occurred to him. They were going to be heading to meet the regent, and if Drake remembered right, that meant they were going to be leaving shortly.

The archer turned around and packed his things into a satchel, just in case, and left the bag sitting on his pillow before dropping noisily down to the main floor.

Locke looked up from his spot at the table, and smiled at the young man, gesturing towards the fresh bread sitting on the cutting board. Drake plopped onto a stool gratefully, reaching for some sausage first. Locke took a good second look at Drake, a confused look appearing in his eyes for a moment before understanding spread.

"You saw the battlefield?" Drake paused with a bite in his mouth before nodding a little. Locke sighed a bit, closing his eyes. "I admit, I was wondering when you would be pulled there. Your eyes are shadowed like they were a week ago, again." Drake blinked. A week ago was when he'd first returned to Lindblum, scouting ahead for Zidane and the others.

"I had no idea that that sort of thing was going on...A war like that..." Locke nodded, and sighed. Being a Chosen didn't exactly seem as beneficial as it had first seemed. Not when they were going to be soldiers for the Constellato for the rest of eternity. Still, Drake wasn't about to give it up. He needed the strength that it gave him, and it felt...right. It opened so many doors for him, and gave him a way to support Zidane and the others, opening those doors they needed.

"It's been going on since before I was a Chosen." Drake grabbed for some bread, looking at the older man. "Gatz told me that the Chosen who receive the Stellazio during hardships become more powerful, and are looked to as leaders once they take that field." Drake blinked, and rolled the bit of bread he had in his hand around. "Even more so those who are chosen during times of strife both on Gaia and on that battlefield." Drake looked at Locke, and the old man raised his eyebrows.

"I was chosen just a couple of days before Alexandria attacked Burmecia. Though I suppose that still counts." Locke chuckled at Drake, and pushed a flask over to him. Drake uncorked it and sniffed a little before blinking at the old man. "Barley water?" Locke nodded, chuckling a bit. Drake smiled a bit before drinking some of it.

Zidane dropped down the ladder, yawning, and waved to Drake and Locke as he moved towards the table they were sitting at. Drake kicked a stool over for him, and Zidane smiled a bit hazily at him. He took some of the bread that Locke handed to him, and started to eat slowly.

"So what are you doing up so late, Drake? I thought you've been helping Sarisa all week." Drake blinked at Locke for his change in topic, and took another bite of bread, yawning a little.

"I'm meeting with Artania again today. Hopefully we'll get Dagger in to see her uncle." Locke nodded, looking concerned. Drake smiled a bit. "I packed my things into a satchel in case we need to get out fast. It's sitting on my cot." Locke blinked at that, and then chuckled.

"Got your instincts telling you something's going to happen? I've had the same happen on occasion. Unfortunately, they're normally right." Drake smiled thinly at that information. "I'll be on alert if something happens, and bring it to you. I know...other ways into the castle. I used them when I was spymaster, but I was sworn never to tell them to others." Drake nodded, accepting that, though Zidane frowned.

"You can't get us in to see the regent that way...?" Zidane shot a look to his brother, and Zidane frowned at him before his tired mind registered that it would count as showing the backways to someone. "Sorry. Still half asleep." Locke chuckled.

"I thought you woke up faster than me, Zidane. I'm wide awake, and I woke up just moments before you." The monkey-tailed man glared at the archer for the slight ribbing. "I know, it's because I woke up with a start, and you woke up cause I made noise." Zidane rolled his eyes and finished his bread.

After a few minutes, both Drake and Zidane were heading out, Zidane with his extra change of shirts tucked into the pouch at the back of his belt. The monkey-tailed thief's costume was actually still in great condition, considering all he'd been through in it. Drake was dressed in yellows and browns, his yellow scarf covering his pouch like his green one had been about a week ago, though he was wearing most of his armor, no longer afraid of hinting that he was an archer. He'd heard rumors filtered through Locke's information network that he was supposed to be in Treno.

The two of them joined the midday rush to the marketplace, and Drake led the way to Torres' synthesis shop, smiling at the old man as he walked in. He'd dropped his bracer off the other day for the man to work on. His scar was covered by a cloth. More than a few people were covering up scars that could identify them, and even more just as a sign of support for the resistance, though no one would outright say as much.

Torres greeted Zidane and Drake as they entered his shop, but it was his son that dealt with them, seeing as his father was busy on something. Drake paid him and accepted his bracer, running his thumb on the leather as he did so. Zidane distracted Torres until Drake grabbed his collar and dragged him off, his bracer on his forearm again.

As Drake expected, Artania was organizing soldiers, giving out the orders that people had been waiting to hear all week long. Instead of having the soldiers helping the Alexandrians look for resistance members, Artania was finally telling them to start working on reconstruction.

Zidane waved to a cloaked woman as she wove through the crowd, and Drake smiled a bit. Dagger was doing much better at blending in with commoners. She found her way to Drake and Zidane, and talked with the monkey-tailed man as Drake approached Artania. The man smiled at him and led the way to an empty warehouse, followed in a few minutes by Zidane and Dagger.

As soon as Zidane closed the door, Dagger took her hood off and rushed towards Artania, who caught her up in a hug. Even though she wasn't related to him, the man was like family to her, Drake could see. Finally, the two let go, and Dagger smiled at Artania.

"I'm so glad to see you safe, Uncle Artania. But...Uncle Cid...Is he safe?" Drake moved to the window and leaned against the wall next to it. He'd experimented the other day, and had found that he could put not only his bow, but also his quivers into his bottomless pouch. He was ready to fight if he so needed to.

"Yes, Princess. The castle was spared." Drake smiled a bit at that, and he figured that Brahne had set the eidolon far enough from the castle itself to do nothing more than shatter some windows. The hangars would be needed, too, for their damaged airships, especially for the Red Rose. "Regent Cid is alive." The man's beard twitched as he smirked slightly. "Not too terribly happy, but alive." Dagger smiled back at him.

"I'm so relieved. May I see him?" Drake glanced at Artania as he looked over him and Zidane, as if assessing them. Drake smiled a little and lifted his eyebrow. Both had met the regent before, and Drake was the Chosen of the city.

Finally, Artania nodded, and gestured for them to follow him as he walked to a section of the warehouse hidden by a few boxes that looked like they hadn't been moved in a very long time. Drake blinked as he opened a trapdoor and headed down it, and dropped down it before Zidane or Dagger, looking around before gesturing that it was alright.

The tunnel lead them to Artania's suite, and the man gestured for them to rest in his sitting room. Dagger sat, but Drake and Zidane both paced a bit, on edge. Drake's hand rested near his pouch at all times, and Zidane simply seemed to be fidgety.

Artania returned with a smile on his face, and gestured for them to follow him. Drake lifted an eyebrow at him a bit, but started to see why he was so confident. No Alexandrian soldiers were in the walls here. Zidane glanced over to Drake, and the archer nodded, showing he'd noticed the same thing. Both of them started to relax.

"Princess Garnet has returned." Drake lifted an eyebrow at the formal wording as they were led onto the balcony where Regent Cid seemed to be overseeing the restoration of his city, or at least trying to figure out how he was going to do so. Dagger dashed ahead of Drake and Zidane with a happy shout, and ran to her uncle's side.

"Garnet! I thought Brahne had imprisoned you!" Dagger smiled and giggled a little, gesturing towards Zidane and Drake.

"Zidane and Drake rescued me." Zidane looked smug, and then noticed that Drake was still looking about, his eyes scanning the distance, as he would for any archers that could shoot at a distance, like himself.

"Thank you, Zidane. Gwok! And you, Chosen of my city. Gwok-gwok!" Drake blinked as he turned to the regent, and smiled a little sheepishly. Drake wasn't at all surprised that Cid already knew that he was the Chosen of the Sagittarius Stellazio. Dagger bowed her head, looking concerned again, and Drake crossed his arms, understanding why.

"But Freya, Steiner, and Beatrix were left behind. I..." Drake sighed a little, recognizing the topic as something Dagger had been worrying over the entire week. Locke had said he was doing his best to find any information on them, and that the lack of information was actually good. Had the Alexandrians captured or killed them, they would have announced it to the world.

"Ah, the renowned General Beatrix. I don't think you have anything to worry about." Zidane nodded, and stepped a little closer to Dagger, smiling a bit.

"I don't think so, either, Dagger. We wound up in Pinnacle Rocks instead of Treno, but they'll be fine on their own." Drake nodded, finally deciding for himself that the area they were in was safe.

"Gwok-gwok! Pinnacle...? Did you ride the gargant?" Zidane and Dagger blinked, looking startled, and Drake smiled a little.

"H-how did you know?" Drake glanced up at the sky, seeing more clouds headed towards Lindblum. There had been plenty of storms since Alexandria attacked, just making everyone more miserable.

"It's my job to know the land surrounding my country." The regent sighed, the motion inflating then deflating his bug body. "However...I sometimes lack foresight. Brahne was after the gwok! Eidolons. That much, I knew. But I underestimated the power of the eidolons." Drake looked over the city as Regent Cid turned to do so as well. He barely heard the muttering that Zidane and Dagger looked concerned about. Zidane bowed his head.

"Cleyra resisted...and almost perished. I'm glad you surrendered." Drake blinked at Zidane. In the game, Zidane had said something different, but Drake had changed the event that had been spoken of. Just how far reaching would the ripples from that decision go?

A sudden yell made Drake turn and look, frowning. A pair of soldiers backed into sight, their weapons pointed at something in front of them. Drake growled a little as he heard the warning he shouted to some of his friends.

"Hey! We got a live one here!" The other one seemed much more nervous, and Drake's jaw clenched as he caught sight of what they were threatening.

"Watch out! It might attack!" Zidane grabbed Drake's shoulder before the archer could storm over to the soldiers. One of the soldiers on duty that had the remnants of scorch marks in his armor peered over the shoulder of one of the ones walking in.

"Hey, this one's much smaller than the others." Dagger jumped as she suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Ouch! Let me go! I'm not one of them!" Zidane let go of Drake's shoulder in surprise, and the archer ran over to the soldiers, glaring at them a bit as he gently pushed them to the side.

"Then why are you dressed like a black mage!" Drake pinned the soldier that spoke with a glare that made him cringe. It seemed that the soldiers all knew who he was.

"It's a disguise," the archer growled, and the soldiers glanced over to Artania, who nodded, backing up Drake's lie. Dagger ran up to Vivi and knelt down in front of him, concerned. He whimpered a little, and the princess gathered him into a hug. "He is not an Alexandrian soldier. He is our friend, and has been traveling with us. He was in the Festival of the Hunt, and did very well for himself." With each sentence, the soldiers cringed.

"A-apologies, young master." Drake huffed a little, but didn't growl at the soldiers any more, seeing as Vivi had nodded a little distractedly, apparently forgiving them. The soldiers backed up, and left, their faces bright red. Vivi adjusted his hat, composing himself as he pulled away from Dagger's hug.

"I've acquired more information about Queen Brahne, gwok." Drake blinked at the regent, and turned to face him. "A weapons dealer named Kuja is behind the recent string of attacks." Drake paused to think a bit. Hadn't he heard...? "Kuja has been supplying Brahne with highly advanced magic weapons." Dagger was holding her hands to her mouth again, her eyes worried.

"Supplying my mother...with weapons?" Drake glanced to Zidane, and caught a glance in return.

"Kuja...He was in Burmecia." Drake knew he was interrupting the flow of the dialogue from the game, but he didn't really care at the moment. He didn't want to see Vivi's face as the fact that the black mages they'd been fighting were puppets.

"We saw him speaking with Queen Brahne. She referred to him by name." The regent blinked at the serious looks on Drake and Zidane's faces, and nodded, able to tell that they were telling the truth.

"According to eyewitnesses in Treno, Kuja appeared from the northern sky on a silver dragon. That he came from the north suggests that he is from the Outer Continent." Drake noticed Zidane glancing at him from the corner of his eye, and shifted a little, knowing that a certain woman was going to be mentioned shortly.

"In that case, Anastasia likely is as well." Sounds of confusion came from the regent and Artania, and Drake sighed a little, looking away.

"She's the one that I was besotted with for a time. She revealed her true disposition in Burmecia. She took part in the Festival of the Hunt, and I believe she deliberately kept from scoring high. The talent that she displayed in Burmecia would have allowed her to sweep the competition if she had chosen to do so." Zidane nodded, backing up what Drake said. Dagger, however, looked confused.

"The Outer...Continent?" Or perhaps she had just been stuck on the concept of the continent. Zidane had an odd look on his face as he turned to look at the princess, and Drake didn't blame him. He knew that she was a bit overwhelmed by how fast things were going, but they didn't have the time to slow down.

"There are many unexplored continents in the world. The Outer Continent is an unexplored continent located to the north of our Mist Continent." Drake blinked as he felt a dull ache in the back of his head, and rubbed his temples a little until the ache disappeared.

"I believe Kuja is the only one supplying, gwok, Brahne with weapons." Dagger gasped, dropping the hand that she'd had pressed to her heart.

"The man I saw the castle must have been Kuja. He must be the one who is corrupting my mother!" Drake tilted his head to the side as he thought. He didn't doubt that Kuja was corrupting the queen. The woman likely was still grieving for her husband, and grieving woman was much easier to manipulate than one who wasn't.

The archer couldn't help but smirk a little as Dagger and Zidane arrived to the exact same conclusion and spoke at the same time. So Dagger had taken a bit to catch up with the rest of them, but she seemed to be quick to do so once she got past the bit about the continents. The regent glanced to Drake, also seeming to smile.

"You both catch on quickly." Drake closed his eyes as his smile faded a little, already making note of their supplies and figuring out what else they would need to buy before going. Drake needed to get some more arrows one way or another, and they needed some more ethers in case either Vivi or Dagger ran out of mana.

The archer tuned out the rest of the conversation, checking and double-checking what they needed in his head. Drake was good, aside from needing more arrows, and Zidane had taken care of his own needs...Vivi had a few things that Drake had bought him in the past week. The only one that needed much of anything was Dagger.

"Besides, you have me and Drake to protect you!" Drake blinked his eyes open as he heard Zidane, and lifted an eyebrow at his brother. Dagger seemed to relax a bit at these words, though, and nodded, smiling slightly.

"Then I'll look for Kuja." Drake glanced to Vivi as soon as the boy shifted, barely having to turn his head to do so. The others were arranged in a circle, but Drake was standing just outside of it, where he could see everyone better.

"I wanna go, too...There's no place for me here." Drake smiled a little, showing that he didn't mind the little black mage's company, and snorted as Zidane bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment.

"Alright! Let's go kick Kuja's butt!" Drake sighed a little and rubbed at his eyes, seeing that he was going to have to be the level-headed one in the group again.

"Be that as it may, Zidane, but how are we going to get there? Do we have the armor and supplies for such a trip? Do we have a map of our destination, or any information on what lies there? These are things we need to think of before we depart." Zidane almost immediately drooped, the archer's words puncturing a hole in his mood. He stood straight after a moment, a thoughtful look on his face before he turned to look at the regent.

"Will you lend us the fastest airship in Lindblum?" Drake rubbed his temples again as his headache was starting to come back, frowning a little as something struck him as odd about the ache.

"Airships can only fly where there is Mist, and the Mist only exists on this continent, gwok. That means you can't cross the ocean on an airship." Zidane sighed, having apparently forgotten that, then blinked and tilted his head to the side.

"What about the new airship that can fly without the Mist?" Drake perked up at this, remembering hearing chatter about it a while back. Something like that would greatly help them. ...But why was he thinking that it wouldn't be available to them...?

"It's not ready yet, gwok. Besides, it's under Brahne's control. She gave us two conditions for our surrender. One was the surrender of the new airship. The other was to hand over, gwok, the Falcon Claw." Drake blinked at that, alarms going off in his head. Zidane simply looked confused.

"The airship, I can understand, but what does she want with a piece of stone?" Dagger and Vivi glanced to Drake, whose face was almost ashen.

"Zidane, did the Alexandrians take anything from Cleyra?" The monkey-tailed boy turned to look at the archer, blinking. "I haven't heard anything about them going after Cleyra again, so I thought that maybe they were after something there, and got it the first time. And the Constellato was worried about the stone on top of that harp being stolen..." Now Zidane looked a little startled.

"Come to think of it, yeah...General Beatrix took the stone from the harp, and then just ran." Drake frowned. There was something he had to remember about the stones, but it just wasn't popping into his head. "What could they possibly want with a couple of rocks?" Drake shook his head, his headache keeping him from remembering exactly what significance the stones had.

"I have no idea..." Zidane sighed a bit, and dropped the subject, shaking his head as if to physically move his train of thought on to the next subject.

"Alright...We'll take a boat." The regent shook his head again, a frown on his buggy face.

"That's not an option, either. The harbor was also seized." This news seemed to frustrate Zidane a good deal, but Drake didn't share his alarm, though his headache was getting much worse.

"Ahhhhh! What do you want us to do! Swim!" Drake's head swam as a wash of images suddenly burst in his mind, and when he next knew what was happening, he was being supported by a thoroughly frightened Zidane.

"Are you alright?" Drake blinked and looked to his left, seeing Dagger crouching there. When had he been on the ground?

"I'm...a little confused. What just happened?" Movement made Drake glance to the regent, who had jumped off the top of his chair to get a better look at him.

"You groaned and then collapsed, holding your head." Drake frowned a little. "I noticed you rubbing your head as if it ached earlier. If it was getting bad enough for you to collapse, you should have said something. I would have the meeting arranged for a later date." Drake shook his head, sighing a little.

"It hit me unexpectedly. My head wasn't aching too hard earlier. I..." Drake paused, frowning a little. A memory of a muggy, damp swamp beyond a stone doorway floated up in his mind, but it wasn't an image that he had remembered before. "...I think I remembered something. The swamp in the Euorus Plains...Is there a stone structure of some sort there?" The regent stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

"...I was about to mention it when you collapsed." He turned to look at Zidane, seeing as the thief was the leader of the group. "There's an old excavation site near the swamp located north from the castle. Monsters not native to our continent are rumored to appear in the excavation site. The cave, found during the excavation, is rumored to lead to another continent." Drake frowned a little, and the regent glanced at him again.

"Will this cave lead us to the Outer Continent?" Zidane helped Drake to stand, and made sure the archer could balance before letting him go, glancing to Dagger.

"Doesn't sound too reliable...Are you sure?" The regent seemed a little smug, and gesture toward Drake, who was looking a bit clueless.

"The accent Drake has is one that is originates elsewhere from the Mist Continent. News of a ship from another continent wrecked on our shores would surely have been circulated, and there has been no sign of airships coming from across the ocean, so I am led to believe he came through the tunnel." Drake blinked hard as his head ached horribly again, and had to quickly put his hand on Zidane's shoulder to make sure he wasn't about to fall again. That, of course, drew attention again. "Unfortunately, it seems that Drake's memories are causing him pain as they resurface."

"I guess we'll find out where the tunnel leads when we get there. Not knowing is half the fun, huh?" Drake sighed as the ache dulled, courtesy of a cure spell from Dagger, and smiled his thanks to her before dropping his hand from Zidane's shoulder.

"Please protect Princess Garnet. We'll prepare for the counterattack in the meantime." Drake couldn't help but smile a little. Preparations were a bit farther along that he might have thought, thanks to the ideas the archer had given to Locke and Andreas. The regent gestured towards Artania, who pulled a gil purse from his robes and handed it to Dagger. "It's not much, but use it to prepare for your journey." Vivi shuffled nervously, and Drake glanced over to him.

"I-I'll wait here. Drake, will and Zidane get my stuff, too?" Drake nodded, and then glanced to Zidane, who was counting out the money in the pouch.

"Sure, Vivi. I've gotten more than a few things in the past week, so I'm pretty much set. All we need to do is get the supplies we need to survive a trip that may or may not take long." Drake looked to Zidane, who nodded, handing the archer half of the gil that had been in the pouch.

"I'll get the restorative items, and maybe some new armor. You get the food, canteens, and tent tickets." Drake nodded, and waved to Dagger as the two men headed back out of the castle, sneaking past the few Alexandrian guards. It was still fairly early, so they had enough time to hurry and get everything before setting out likely in the morning.

As soon as the two were in the Market District, they split up. Drake stopped someone that he knew could get in touch with Locke, and sent a message along with him, knowing that Locke would get his satchel of things to him before they left, along with Zidane and the others' things.

Drake waved to Alice as he walked past her destroyed store, sending a smile her way. She smiled back at him, glad that he hadn't shown her pity. She was starting to get tired of it. By the looks of things, though, he was busy with something.

Drake had to walk a fair bit to find the merchant he needed, and then had to haggle quite a bit to get the trail rations he was looking for. It wasn't like what he was buying was in high demand, either. Hardtack and jerky kept much longer than the other foods the man was selling, and he hadn't heard of anyone traveling or getting ready to travel in the week he'd been there.

Finally, the archer managed to argue the merchant down to a reasonable price, and huffed a little as the man packed up the goods he'd just sold. The archer kept an eye on him as he did so, not failing to let the man know he was being watched. Drake had done business with him before, and had been cheated. This journey was worth too much to chance being cheated.

The man, of course, gave a different price once the whole thing was bundled up, but realized his mistake when he saw the dark stare Drake was giving him. Drake handed over the proper amount of money, and then left, muttering under his breath about merchants who had nothing on their minds but fattening up their purses.

A young boy stopped him with a hand on his arm, handed him a slip of paper, and then darted off. Drake glanced after him before looking at the message, keeping his face calm. He shrugged a bit, then shoved the paper into his pouch, knowing that anyone who tried to pick something out of that one had a surprise coming.

Drake went to the inn across from the air cab station and checked in, glad that Locke had managed to reserve a room for the two men. Dagger and Vivi would be safe in the castle. Drake checked and made sure that all of Vivi, Dagger, and Zidane's things really were packed, and then left, telling the innkeeper he'd be back by nightfall.

Drake found his brother over by Alice's destroyed shop, trying to fashion a bag out of something. Drake simply shook his head and picked up half of what Zidane had bought, smirking at him. The thief frowned a little at him, but didn't complain.

"We've got a room at the inn across from the aircab station. We won't have to haul anything very far." Zidane nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little. He'd thought that they would have to find a way to get everything back to the Garden District.

"Wait, what about-" Drake grinned as Zidane realized that something could be missing.

"He packed everyone's things and sent them to the inn. I checked, everything's there." No one paid any attention to the two men carrying bottles of ethers and potions. It was a common enough sight, as many people had been injured by the attack and the healers were having a hard time keeping up. Drake had run a couple such errands in the Garden District, where there hadn't been much damage but refugees had practically swarmed the locals.

"Good. You didn't have any trouble with your half?" Drake grimaced a little, remembering the unpleasant merchant. "I take it that was a 'yes, I had trouble'." Drake gave his brother a wry smirk as they headed into the inn so they could sort the supplies.

"You remember that merchant that cheated me a while back? He was the only one that had enough trail rations." Zidane made a disgusted noise at the mention of what Drake had bought. "Hey, they keep for forever."

"Yeah, but they taste like crap. I'd just managed to get the taste out of my mouth between Cleyra and here." Drake shrugged as they trekked up the stairs to their room, and carefully set the bottles down on one of the beds.

"Neither hardtack nor jerky will spoil, and we don't know how long we'll be traveling. Did you get any eyedrops? I'm going to need those, just in case." Zidane nodded, and pulled out several vials. Drake set them off to the side, in a pile reserved for himself.

"Yeah, seeing as you need your sight to do anything in battle. How's your head?" Drake paused to glance at Zidane, his own hands busy with the pack of food so that he could parcel it out. He'd even bought extra, just in case they found another person to travel with them. The extra would be carried by all of them.

"Not aching, if that's what you're worried about. I still don't know why it started. I haven't had any headaches all during the week." Zidane sighed a little, setting aside half of the ethers and some potions for Vivi.

"Well, that's still really bizarre. Why is your memory coming back off of a sudden?" Drake shrugged. That was something that he was trying to avoid thinking about. He wasn't sure which set of memories to trust.

"I don't know. I'm more than a little concerned by it, to be honest. After two years, why is it that my memories are returning so much in the past three weeks? Is it the war that's unlocking them, or the Stellazio?" Zidane shrugged, and Drake sighed, lifting his hand to rub at his forehead. He was getting a headache just by mildly thinking of it.

"I dunno, but you need to take it easy. You're going to be important in the group." Drake smiled a bit, and then blinked as he remembered he had forgotten something.

"Yeah, I know. Can you finish up sorting? I forgot I need to get some more arrows." Zidane sighed a little and nodded, and the archer smiled before getting up from the bed and walking out the door. "I'll meet you by Grandma Pickle's stand for dinner." The thief grinned a bit, and went back to sorting things out.

Just outside the inn door, Drake pulled his quivers out of his pouch and attached them to his belt, slipping his unstrung bow into one of the empty ones. He'd managed to empty one during the attack on Cleyra. Or, he had mostly done so, and then the rest spilled out somehow.

Only a few people glanced at him as he trotted along the street, and grinned at Dragoos as he entered the slightly battered shop. There was only one Alexandrian there, looking over some cheaper swords.

The buff weapons dealer greeted Drake with a cheer and leaned forwards. The two chatted idly, until the soldier stopped listening in, so that they could do some business done. After a bit of time, Drake handed over his empty quiver, taking his bow out of it so that the weapons dealer could fill it with arrows. They might not have been as good as some he'd prefer, but they were arrows nonetheless. A bit of bartering, where Dragoos insisted on giving Drake a heavy discount, and some gil was exchanged. Dragoos even handed Drake a thinner version of a quiver to store his bow in.

By the time Drake found his way to Grandma Pickle's stand, Zidane was already there, his gil pouch visible but in a spot where he'd feel if someone tried to pick his pockets. The thief smiled a bit as the archer stretched his arms up over his head.

"Alright, then. To where now?" Drake chuckled a bit at Zidane, and twitched his fingers to gesture for the thief to follow him, taking a sidestreet. Drake nodded to a few people that they passed by, and got friendly smiles. The two ducked into a small tavern, and Drake smiled as everyone in the room turned to look at the newcomers. The wary looks immediately relaxed as soon as the young man was identified.

The two men found a couple of spots free at a table, and introduced themselves to the resistance members there. None of them really talked much. The resistance members knew better, and Zidane and Drake were trying to remember if they needed to get anything else before leaving in the morning.

Drake had one watered down pint of ale, and Zidane had one that wasn't watered down. They had considerably less to drink than the men that they were sitting with. Both knew that they couldn't afford to have hangovers in the morning.

The meal was equally restrained, and the two men left before their tablemates, smiling off offers of more rounds, begging duties for the morning.

Zidane fell asleep far faster than Drake, who lay awake long after the candles had all been blown out. Images kept flashing in front of his mind's eye. Darkness, flickering torchlights, a dark abyss stretching down farther than the eye could see...Where were these memories coming from? Did he really have amnesia and just hadn't realized it because he had all his memories of Earth? Or was there something playing with his head?

The archer sighed and rolled onto his side, stubbornly closing his eyes as he tucked his hand under his ear. He didn't have the time to ponder. He needed to rest, so he had the energy for an extended hike starting in the morning.

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**End Notes:** Um. Wow. Heh. So this is the chapter that I got stuck on a while back. I had no idea that there were so few gaps in it. Yeah. The spot that I got stuck in was the bit where Vivi got shoved in front of the Regent by a couple of guards. That's not a normal reaction for Drake, so that's why I got stuck on it. I guess the original stuff was getting to be a bit too much. Much as I love how I padded the Lindblum sequence.


	10. Age of Rebellion

**Authoress' note: **Whoops! Oh, man, I feel like even more of a derp. I forgot to even upload this chapter! I'm really sorry about this, everyone... I'm not normally this scatter-brained, but...

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise

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Chapter 10: Age of Rebellion

Drake grunted as he woke, sitting up. The hand that had been shaking his shoulder retracted, and the sleepy archer turned his head to regard his friend, who was smiling at him wearily in the light cast by a lone candle. Zidane backed up a bit as Drake sat up on his bed and ran his hands over his face.

"What time is it?" A slightly stale roll was handed to the archer, and the man grumbled a bit, breaking the crust to get to the much softer bread still inside.

"Bells just rang six." Drake grunted a little, and glanced out the window, spotting the night sky outside. "Locke's replacement is waiting in the common room. He's going to sneak us in, but we have to go before the sun's up." Drake grunted again, and popped the crusts into his mouth despite their less-than-desirable texture, and grabbed the clothing he'd set out for the morning.

Once Drake was dressed and had shoved his feet into his boots, the two of them grabbed the bags and walked down the stairs as quietly as they could, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. The young, non-descript man that pushed off the wall at their approach also looked tired, and handed them each a warm roll. He got a smile from each of them, and picked up a bag that Drake had set down.

"None of the Alexandrians are up yet. They've been having a hard time getting good supplies for their ships." Drake couldn't help but smirk a little, and followed the man out of the building. "I've heard rumors that an old friend of mine is to thank for that." Zidane glanced to Drake, who shrugged slightly.

They walked to the warehouse that held the tunnel to the castle. Drake grumbled a little in the tunnel, but didn't complain otherwise. Zidane didn't seem to care in the least, bringing up the rear with two bags on his back. Drake just wanted to get through the tunnel as quickly as possible.

The man seemed to know his way around the tunnel very well, and opened a secret door along one of the walls, and led them through it before the door closed. Zidane noticed that Drake was tense as he grabbed the archer's shoulder to make sure neither of them got lost.

"This tunnel's darker, but shorter." True to the man's word, a sliver of light appeared, and he stuck his head out, looking around. "All clear. We'll need to move fast." Drake and Zidane nodded, and trotted after the spymaster. They reached the elevator without incident, and took it to the lower levels.

"...I wonder what Brahne is going to do..." Drake glanced to Zidane as all three men leaned on different spots of the railing. The archer was still very tense.

"...Do we really have to go to the Outer Continent?" The idea of travelling hundreds of miles underground made him uneasy. He knew that he couldn't do much in a tunnel, as far as fighting. Zidane blinked at him, though, looking slightly startled.

"You might be from there, though. Don't you want to find out more about your past?" Drake was quiet as the elevator continued to hum.

"...What if what I find is something I'd have been better off not knowing?" Silence fell , and the elevator hissed to a stop. The spymaster walked to the gate and opened it, letting the two men off.

The man waved as he took the elevator back up, and Drake glanced to him, wondering if he could send a message to Locke to give the man a hand. He looked like he had more on his plate than he could handle.

"Zidane! Drake!" Drake turned in time to catch Vivi as the young mage barreled into his legs. He stumbled back a step and chuckled a little, glancing to Dagger and smiling a bit to reassure her.

"Where's the regent?" Dagger glanced to the tracks behind her. Vivi shuffled a bit, drawing attention to him. Zidane was pouting about something, probably because Dagger hadn't greeted him as enthusiastically as Vivi had Drake.

"He told us to wait here and then went down the track in the trolley." Drake walked to the side of the platform and looked both ways, an odd look on his face. He leaned a bit more as he spotted the regent, and knelt to help the regent up onto the platform.

"Gwok! I did it!" Drake tilted his head to the side, wondering what he'd done that he sounded so pleased with himself about. "I stopped a trolley between here and the Serpent's Gate! Gwok-gwok! That'll show them not to fool around in my castle!" Drake smiled a bit. "Now go, gwok-gwok." Drake nodded, and followed Zidane and the others to the trolley on the other side of the platform. "The excavation site is like a maze, I've heard. Be careful not to get lost."

Drake was practically quivering, and had to take a deep breath as Zidane placed his hand on his shoulder. Dagger sent him a concerned look, and Vivi tugged on his sash. The regent sent him a concerned look as well.

"And..." The regent pulled a cloth from under his cape, and Drake knelt to take it from him. "Take this with you!" Zidane tugged it from the archer, a dubious look on his face.

"It's a rag." The regent hopped, making an angry noise. Drake hid a smile at that, standing.

"You big dope! It's not just a rag! Gwok! That is a national treasure of Lindblum! That is an ancient map of the entire world!" Drake blinked, and Zidane eyed the regent before handing the fabric map back to the Chosen.

"Wow...thanks." Drake carefully folded the map and tucked it safely into his pouch, knowing that it would be safest there. That's likely why the regent had handed the map to him. Shouting drew their attention to the other track, and Drake tensed, his hand sliding to his bow.

"Now, go, before they find you! Zidane, Drake, Vivi. Please, protect Princess Garnet." Drake and Zidane both nodded, Vivi nodding a heartbeat later.

"Uncle Cid..." Drake started to the trolley, casting a look over it to make sure no Alexandrian soldier had booby-trapped it...or any Resistance member.

"Gwok! Don't' worry about me. I'm stronger than I look! Now go!" Drake stepped onto the trolley and the rest followed. "They'll squeeze all the oglop oil out of my body if we're caught!" Zidane nodded to the regent and flipped a few levers on the trolley.

Drake had to grab hold of the railing to keep from falling over, his other hand grabbing Vivi to make sure he didn't fall over either. They were all quiet as they rode the trolley, each of them mentally preparing themselves for a journey when they couldn't see the end of it.

Once they all stepped off of it, Drake and Zidane handed Dagger and Vivi their own bags. Vivi's was significantly smaller than the bags of the rest of them, which only made sense, as he was so much smaller than they were.

Drake waited for Zidane to talk to the moogle, looking around warily. The door to the plains was closed still, though the moogle nodded to Zidane and fluttered up to a set of gears and started to tug on it. Zidane walked back to them, rubbing his head a bit. Dagger and Vivi looked about nervously, and Drake sighed a bit as he settled on the stairs.

"It's gonna take a while to get the foot gate open. It's kept shut by machinery, to keep the Mist monsters out. Should be open in a few minutes." Drake nodded to Zidane's explanation, and pulled an arrow out of his quiver, rolling it over in his fingers. It was one of the ones that he'd bought from Dragoos.

"Kupopo." Drake blinked as the moogle fluttered over to him, and caught the pouch that was dropped into his hands. He flipped the note pinned to it so that he could read it, and lifted an eyebrow.

'_Drake: _

_Here's the wages Sarisa said she owed you. And something that I won off a young man over two years ago that reminds me an awful lot of you. Stay safe._

_Locke'_

Drake tilted his head to the side and dug into the pouch a bit, and blinked as he pulled out a necklace with several fangs from some sort of creature strung onto a beaded leather cord. They almost seemed to be tinted purple. He shrugged a little and tied it around his neck, over his armor. Immediately, his awareness of it disappeared. It was like he'd just put on a necklace he'd always had back on.

"What's that?" Drake blinked towards Vivi as the boy sat down next to him, looking a bit clueless until the little mage pointed towards the necklace the archer had just put on.

"Hm? Oh, it's just a necklace that Locke gave me. Said he got it a few years back from someone that I remind him of." Drake took a closer look at the objects hanging from it, part of his mind knowing that the fangs came from a wolf, or something very similar to it. Where the dye came from, he wasn't sure.

"Gate's open." Drake lifted his head to look to Zidane, and nodded, putting his arrow away and getting to his feet. He flashed a small smile to the moogle, who nodded to him, showing he understood the brief, unspoken 'thanks'. Dagger fumbled with her bag a little as she stood up from where she'd sat down, and Vivi did the same until Drake crouched to help him. "Everyone's set?" Drake glanced over the others, and then nodded to Zidane, doing his best to hide his concern for the future.

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Drake sighed as he sat by the fire on the plains, his bow laid crosswise in his lap. His fingers were running over his necklace, but he wasn't really aware of it, his eyes on the flames dancing between him and the tent that Mogrika had set up.

Zidane was walking around the little camp, making sure that there weren't any Mist monsters near. Dagger and Vivi were in the tent, asleep. Mogrika was with them, her squeaky snores soft in the air.

They were halfway to the swamp already, and were planning on staying the night at the edge of the marshlands, then finding their way to the tunnel during the day. It was a harsh trek, but they weren't in as much of a rush as they had been on their way to Burmecia, so they could afford to slow down a bit for Dagger and Vivi. Drake had no idea how long they'd be in the tunnels, and he was quite anxious over it.

Drake needed plenty of space to fight the way he was best at, and he wouldn't have that in the tunnels. He had a back-up style, apparently, but he didn't know if he could use it on command. He didn't want to leave most of the fighting up to Zidane and Vivi, but it looked like he didn't have much of a choice.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump, and he turned to look at Zidane, who had moved to sit next to him. The archer shifted and rubbed at his forehead above his eyes, sighing. When he let his hands drop, he realized that his hands were shaking.

"You're really freaking out about this." Drake dipped his head in a nod, and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in.

"I'm not comfortable with tunnels, and not knowing how long I'm gonna be in one is getting me all worked up." Even his voice shook slightly, and his right hand found his necklace again.

"Well, if you were able to get through it before, we should have no problem." Drake's hand clenched around his necklace, and he winced as one of the fangs dug into his palm.

"That's not what has me so freaked out. I can't fight in the tunnels with my bow and arrows. You'll be the one taking all the damage." Zidane sighed a little and shoved Drake's head gently.

"I can handle it. It's you I'm concerned about. With those headaches of yours, who knows when you'll pass out next?" Drake dipped his head as he considered that, his eyes finding an ember that had fallen off of one of the logs. "Go to sleep, Drake. You look like you need it." Drake lifted his head and glanced at his friend, and nodded a bit, moving to the tent and settling down in a corner with his bow tucked against his neck.

When Drake next woke up, it was morning, and Vivi was just starting to stir. Dagger was up already, talking with Mogrika and Zidane. Drake cracked his neck and slipped out of the tent, and stretched his arms over his head. His shoulders popped a bit, and Zidane looked over the low fire to him.

"Morning. You look a little better." Drake smiled a little and removed part of his armor to stretch properly.

"I'm feeling a little better for moving again. Even if I'm not sure about going through a tunnel." Zidane nodded, and passed the archer a bit of food. Drake pulled his armor back on and plopped down next to the fire, munching slowly on the jerky he'd just been given.

Once Vivi came out of the tent, Mogrika broke it down and packed it back onto her chocobo. Each of the travelers took their time stretching and making sure that they hadn't misplaced anything. Once Drake had kicked dirt over the fire, they were on their way, waving goodbye to the perky little moogle girl.

The four of them made their way across the semi-solid ground to the planks that were set across the marshiest areas of the swamp, and Drake pulled his bow off his back, remembering the last time they had been there. Dagger looked a little startled as not just him, but Vivi and Zidane tensed as well.

A loud ribbit proved that their wariness was well-deserved. A Gigan toad jumped out of the marsh weeds towards them, blinking its huge eyes. Vivi started to mumble, a sure sign he was about to cast a spell. Drake hesitated, glancing to Zidane to see what he was going to do.

"Aiyah! You chase away frogs! I eat you!" Drake and Zidane met glances as they heard the familiar voice, and they both started to smile. Vivi's Thunder spell slammed into the toad, making it croak in pain, and a fork stabbed into the top of the monster, killing it.

"Quina!" Drake paused a bit as Zidane called out to the Qu, and then put his arrow away, covering Dagger's eyes with one hand as Quina took a big bite out of the toad. "Eugh..." Vivi turned away as the chunk of toad was spat out.

"No taste good!" Drake did his best to avoid looking at the carnage, looking instead at Quina.

"I'm glad to see you're alright, Quina. How was your trip back from Cleyra?" The fact that the Qu hadn't been with them hadn't been missed by Drake, but he hadn't had cause to think that the strange being was dead, seeing as the settlement of Cleyra had been saved from destruction.

"Drake! You and others go poof at Cleyra! Leave me there with no yummy-yummies!" The archer dropped his hand from in front of the princess's eyes and rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile.

"Everything was sort of happening at once, Quina. Sorry." Zidane was the one to apologize. Drake had a decent reason to disappear without warning. He'd gone up to the airship to take care of a target he'd been unable to reach otherwise.

"You take me where yummy-yummies are!" Quina shook his/her fork at them, and Drake glanced to Zidane.

"We do need another melee fighter..." Granted that Quina's attacks were rather unpredictable in their strength, but at least he'd be another body between the enemy and the princess. Zidane nodded, seeing what Drake was getting at as the archer's eyes flicked between the corpse and Vivi and Dagger. Drake was agile enough to dodge, but Vivi was still a bit clumsy, and Dagger's reflexes weren't as high as theirs.

"Right. Alright, Quina, you can come with us. We're trying to find a tunnel to another continent. It's supposed to be in this marsh." Drake looked around, and blinked as he realized they were at the frog ponds, where he and Zidane had met the Qu the first time.

"Other continent...Maybe I find more delicious frogs?" Drake couldn't help but smile, and slid his bow over his shoulder and head to keep it on him while freeing up both hands to make sure that neither Vivi nor Dagger would fall.

Out of curiousity, Drake pulled the map out of his pouch and looked at it. He had it backwards for a moment, and blinked as he noticed some writing on it. He looked at it closer, and blinked before a small smile crossed his face.

'Let fear propel you forward. Do not look back. Do not let failure stifle you...' The words weren't captioned, but he had a feeling that a certain dragoon that they were missing would be able to recognize the handwriting, if he remembered the description from the game right. As it was, the words bolstered his courage.

A glance to the front of the map gave no clue as to which continent the tunnel led to, or to where the tunnel entrance exactly was. Drake sighed and folded the map carefully before tucking it back into his pouch. When he glanced at Dagger, he saw her looking at the rather large peridot that Ramuh had given her after testing her.

The group was starting to move off when Drake looked back up, and he trotted a couple of steps to catch up. He noticed that they were headed towards Quina's master's house, and sighed as he thought about how much help the Qu might be. Which was to say, none at all.

"Quina! Where are you going!" Drake blinked as Zidane yelled after the Qu that had proved its worth fighting through Burmecia as s/he ran off into the tall grass. Fortunately, the being left a rather wide path for them to follow, so they did.

"I smell! I smell frogs!" Drake tilted his head to the side at the answer, and caught Vivi as the little black mage started to fall. In front of him, Drake saw Zidane shake his head, an aggravated look on his face.

"No, we have to look for the entrance to the Outer Continent!" The thief was about to head off on his own and forge another path when Quina sped up again.

"I smell frog this way!" Drake sighed and picked up Vivi, moving him to his back, where the boy grabbed hold, seeing that it would be much faster.

"Hey, Quina! Hold on!" Zidane trotted after Quina with a soft curse, despite Dagger being nearby. The woman glanced to Drake with wide eyes, and he shrugged.

"Might as well follow. Quina knows this area better than the rest of us." Dagger shook her head a bit and carefully picked her way over the fallen and crushed weeds that now made a path for them.

Surprisingly soon, they entered an area that was actually paved, preceded by Quina's shout of 'FROGS!', of course. Drake let Vivi down and looked around. He blinked as he realized a certain sound hadn't come, and walked up to the broken and rusted chains that had been crossing the entryway in the game.

A sudden headache hit him, and he had to plant his hand on the ground to keep from falling over, his other hand on his head. A gentle, cool hand brushed his hand away, and he blinked up at Dagger's concerned face. Zidane was looking towards them like he only just realized what was happening, and looked freaked out.

"I...I think I remember this place." Drake ran his hand through his hair again, and stood. Dagger steadied him as he wobbled a bit. "Nngh...Certainly giving me a headache." Zidane walked up to Drake, a worried look on his face.

"You gonna be alright?" Drake nodded, and then looked around. For a moment, he thought the others had disappeared, but when he shook his head, they were right in front of him again.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm just gonna have to try to not space out." Zidane smiled a bit and looked around at the paved area. "Think this is the excavation site that the regent mentioned?" Zidane looked around as well, and then nodded, a confident smile on his face.

"Gotta be." Quina walked up, loudly chewing something. More likely than not a frog, Drake had to guess.

"First time I see this." Drake's shoulders drooped for a moment, and he shook his head with a small smile. "Zidane, we going inside?" Zidane blinked, and chuckled a bit with a nod.

"Of course we will. It might lead to the Outer Continent. Let's go!" Drake nodded to his best friend, and started down the steps into the tunnel, pulling his bow off his back and pausing to unstring it before sliding it and the lone quiver he'd taken out into his pouch.

The archer rolled his shoulders once the weight was gone, feeling almost naked without the comforting weight on his back. It apparently showed, as Vivi grabbed his hand almost immediately.

Dagger almost stumbled over some debris that had fallen in form the roof, and Drake looked up. They actually had entered into an ancient building, which he didn't exactly remember. They entered the Roo, or tunnel, itself soon enough, and Drake looked to the portcullis to the left as the others walked ahead.

"Drake?" The archer glanced to Zidane, and leaned a little close to the gate, squinting as he tried to look through the darkness.

"Thought I heard something in here. I can't really make anything out, though." Zidane tilted his head to the side and walked over to investigate as well. He shook his head after a moment of squinting, though.

"I can't see anything but dark." Drake smiled a little and shrugged, and the two of them headed back towards the others. "Let's go." Drake glanced at what looked like a mask as he passed it, and jumped as he saw the eyes flash red.

"Uhh..." Everyone else jumped as everything around them rumbled, and Vivi grabbed onto Dagger's leg to keep from falling over. "...I think we just triggered something." Zidane turned to snark at Drake, and yelped before racing down the hallway, grabbing Dagger's wrist as he went. Drake glanced and did the same, snatching up Vivi.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Drake caught up with Zidane pretty quickly, his long legs stretching out. A glance back showed that Quina was doing its best to keep up. "Drake! Didn't you have a memory or something that warned about this?" The archer shook his head as the group raced past a swinging pendulum.

"Not a one!" A crash made Drake glance back again, and speed up. "Keep going!" They passed six pendulums, and Quina was starting to get out of breath. "Quina! Come on!" Drake slowed a bit, allowing Zidane and Dagger to pass him and Vivi. The princess was starting to look a bit out of breath as well, but Zidane kept pulling her along. The spear on that strange monster wasn't looking friendly at all. "Vivi! Do something! Torch it or something!"

The little black mage squeaked a bit, but started to chant, right in Drake's ear. Not that he paid attention, though. He was too busy trying not to get the two of them sliced in half by the seventh pendulum.

The little black mage cast his spell just before Drake carried him past the eighth pendulum, slowing the monster enough for Quina to get past the pendulum. Drake put on a burst of speed and jumped clear over the gap, landing ahead of Dagger and Zidane. He ran several steps to slow down, passing through a doorway, and then turned in time to see the monster fall down the hole in the platform, and Quina start to slow down.

Drake set Vivi down next to the door, and quickly jumped aside for Quina to run in. Zidane ran into the back of the Qu, falling over with a yelp. Drake moved to help Dagger up, holding her up as he saw that she was well and truly out of breath, and shaking.

"Th-that was a close call. Everyone alright? Everyone present?" Drake nodded and took his hands away from Dagger as he noticed she was able to stand on her own again.

"Geez...That didn't do much good." Drake whipped around as he heard someone talking behind him, staring down yet another stairwell. Zidane did the same, his hands dropping to his daggers.

"Who's there!" Drake backed up as he spotted the woman walking up the stairs towards them. Or rather, when he spotted her axe. It was a massive thing, almost bigger than her torso. Dagger backed up as well, taking her cues from the archer.

"I've been looking for you, Princess Garnet." Drake narrowed his eyes and moved in front of Dagger protectively as Vivi edged behind Zidane. Unlike Drake, the thief's eyes were on something other than the woman's face.

"H-have we met?" Drake grunted a little and kicked Zidane's tail sharply, breaking his attention off the woman's considerable chest size. Not that Drake had an easy time ignoring that part of her body. He was a man, after all. "Ow!" Behind Drake, Dagger glared at Zidane. She hissed something at him, and he cringed a little. "Yes, ma'am..." The thief lifted one hand to rub at his head, looking away from both Dagger and the woman in front of them.

When Drake turned his attention away from Zidane and back to the woman, he blinked to find her staring at him with an odd look on her face. He narrowed his eyes a bit and tilted his head to the side, a wary look on his face. Was that just the shadows, or was she...blushing...?

"You're the archer? Hm…Such a shame." Drake glared a bit at the woman, on edge. She turned to the others, a confident smirk on her face. "I'm Lani. I'm under order by the queen to find you, princess." Drake glanced to Dagger, who had inched away from him a little.

"My mother? What does my mother want with me?" Even Dagger sounded on edge and somewhat defensive. "I'm not returning to Alexandria." Drake glanced to Zidane, getting a bad feeling.

"I've got bad news for you, princess. It's not you I'm after." Zidane edged towards Dagger a little, to cover her in case the woman attacked suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Drake swallowed a bit, his whole body practically vibrating. He wanted the fighting to just be done with already.

"The pendant. Does that sound familiar?" Drake glanced down as he felt a tug on the fabric he still wore around his hips, and eased a bit as he saw Vivi holding onto one of the loose ends. Dagger gasped a bit and backed up, holding her hands over the pendant she still wore. Lani stepped forwards, reaching out towards the princess. "Let's have it back. It belongs to Queen Brahne."

Zidane pulled his daggers out finally, but held them loosely as he eyed Lani. The woman eyed him as well, looking wary. She pulled the axe off of her back slowly, not missing when Dagger shook her head and backed up.

"Dagger, Drake, stay back." Drake clicked his tongue as he gently pulled Dagger and Vivi back, until his back was against the fence that was keeping any of them from falling into the abyss behind them.

"Listen carefully, princess. You escaped unscathed from the monster, but you're not gonna be so lucky with me." Drake glared a bit at Lani, letting go of both mages and clenching his hands by his sides. "Hand over the pendant." Zidane finally moved directly in front of Dagger.

"Are you the one who set that monster loose?" Lani looked at Zidane with impatience, a frown creasing her somewhat pretty face.

"Retrieving the pendant far outweighs the safety of the princess." Dagger gasped a bit, and Zidane set the hilts of his daggers together, giving them both a twist in opposite directions to lock them together. A flick to the mechanism made sure they wouldn't be able to split apart in the middle of battle.

"...What do you mean by that?" Drake almost shivered. Zidane's tone of voice was low and dark. He sounded much more dangerous than Drake had ever heard him before. Lani looked like he'd caught her off guard, but she didn't back down, or take a step back.

"I meant exactly what I said. My orders don't include Princess Garnet's safe return." Drake glanced at Dagger as the girl grabbed hold of his arm to keep herself up.

"What...? My mother would never order that..." She looked pale, and in shock. Lani looked like the tenseness in the air had gotten to her as well, and she lifted her axe from the handle at the end and slammed it onto the ground, making them all jump, though Zidane landed in his ready stance.

"That's enough! Give me the pendant! You're trying my patience!" Zidane's tail twitched, and he didn't move from his stance.

"Hmph. What if we refuse?" There was a slight teasing tone in his voice, though the dark, dangerous tone was still there. Lani growled and pulled her massive axe from the ground, flipping it around a bit until her other hand found the second handle in the middle of the axe's spine.

"Stubborn fools! Have it your way!" Vivi pulled his hands away from Drake's sash and started to mutter, beginning to cast his spells. Lani immediately lunged for Dagger, and Drake pulled her to the side, lashing out towards the would-be assassin with his legs in a kick. "Give me the pendant and-Agh!"

Drake felt a small thrill of accomplishment as the woman rubbed her cheek with a grimace, showing where he'd kicked her: exactly where he'd been aiming. Perhaps he was better at fighting unarmed than he'd thought. So long as he allowed his body to react and didn't overthink things, he might be able to pitch in to the fights a bit.

A flash of light in front of each of them made Drake glance to Quina, who was uttering something that sounded like 'mighty guard'. In the meantime, Zidane was lunging for Lani and slashing at her with his double-sided weapon, making her jump back to avoid getting injured. The assassin threw something at Dagger, and Vivi released his spell.

The spell and the object collided in the air, and Drake took a step back as fire and ice warped around each other and created a bit of a smokescreen out of mist in front of them. Drake yelped as something flew through the mist and hit him, and then sputtered as water drenched him. Dagger held up the racket she'd been using as a support and started to chant softly to cast a spell. Drake shook his head and wiped the water from his face and hair, blinking past the stinging pain from so much water hitting him at once, and with such force. Dagger was casting a spell past the dissipating mist, and Zidane was darting to Drake's side, something that looked suspiciously like a sword that Drake had glimpsed hanging off the back of Lani's belt.

"You alright, Drake?" The archer nodded, and shook his torso to get more water off. Another spell hit Dagger, and Drake quickly pulled a potion out of his pouch.

"Slow!" Dagger shook her head to Drake, showing that she didn't need it, and started to chant another spell. Lani lunged through the mist again, and Drake jumped to the side, having to swing his entire body out of the way so quickly he didn't have time to counterattack.

"Shell!" The magic glittered around Dagger for a moment, and she then started to chant again, preparing to cast the spell again. Zidane nodded to Drake to show that he'd understood the archer's quiet answer, and ran towards Lani again, spinning his weapon again to get it into a more comfortable position.

Quina sorta bounced towards Lani as well, and Drake kept an eye on Dagger and Vivi, and dodged the spell items that Lani kept throwing at him. He was starting to get the idea that Queen Brahne had told the assassin to kill him as well as get the pendant back.

Lani blocked the attacks with her axe, though Drake could tell that she was having a bit of a hard time, swinging her massive axe around in an area that restricted her so much. Dagger inflicted Blind on Lani, and Vivi cast Bio. Lani gagged a bit, and shook her head, but kept fighting.

"Why aren't you giving up?" Drake pulled back a little as Lani tried to hit him, and kicked her in the stomach, thrusting her away from him and the mages. The woman coughed, and rested on her axe for a moment, trying to breath. "Rrg...What do you think you're doing?" Zidane attacked Lani again, and the woman got away with a gash on her leg. She was starting to look out of breath and exhausted. Drake hesitated for a moment, and glanced at Zidane and Quina. Both were looking like they were starting to get worn down.

Drake ran towards Lani, and jumped up as the woman swung her axe at him. He kicked her in the head as he jumped over her, rolling on the landing and spinning on his knee to look at her.

"Heh...You're pretty good. Didn't know you could fight without your weapon, though." The assassin limped past Drake and the others, pulling a potion from her pouch and pouring it onto her injury. "What a drag. I'll let you guys go for now!" Drake sighed as Lani ran off, and looked over the others.

"Everyone alright?" Dagger started to cast a cure spell, and waved both her hand and her racket. The spell washed over all of them, easing the aches they felt. Even Drake sighed with relief.

"Glad she ran off. How was she able to swing that axe around?" Drake shook his head with a wry smile at Zidane's comment, and started down the stairs Lani had come up. The archer paused as he found the bottom of the stairs, his eyes widening.

"Woah. I could actually use my bow in here without worrying." A few confused noises behind him announced the others, and Drake moved out of the way with a small smile. Despite his fears, he didn't feel claustrophobic at all.

"Wow! No kidding. Hey look! A Gargant!" Drake glanced to Zidane, and grinned at the look on his face. The thief looked energetic and excited. More so than Drake had ever seen him. "Doesn't look tamed. Maybe I can ride it!" Drake cringed at that suggestion.

"You do that, and we'll get split up." Zidane rubbed the back of his head, grimacing. "Unless..." Drake looked around, an idea hitting him. He jumped and grabbed a vine, trying to yank it down, but then dropped. "Nah. I don't have the tools." He blinked at the odd looks he was getting from Dagger and Zidane. "What? I thought I could make an improvised gondola, using the vines to snag a Gargant." Zidane rolled his eyes with a smile on his face, and Dagger simply gave Drake another odd look.

"Go figure you'd think of that. You think in an entirely different way from anyone else I've met." Drake grinned at his brother, and trotted up to the tunnel the Gargant Root went through. He always had thought it sounded odd, naming a tiny shrub on the surface after a bug that crawled around on its roots, but he saw why, now.

"Wild Gargants usually travel in groups. We must have just seen the tail end of that pack. We'll wait for the next group to come by, and hop on them." Drake blinked, and then shrugged. Zidane apparently knew more about the creatures than Drake did. "Might take a-" Zidane cut himself off as they all heard a distant sound, and Zidane smiled. "Well, maybe not. There's the next pack." Drake stooped to pick the yellow flowers, and passed them around.

"Don't eat it, Quina, you need it to get the Gargant to stop." The Qu paused with the flower near its mouth, and then tilted its head towards Drake. Then the Qu ate it anyway. Drake and Zidane sighed in unison. "Zidane, how about you go ahead first. You're the leader, so we'll get off where you do." The thief nodded, and lifted his flower. The lead Gargant paused long enough to eat the flower, and Zidane jumped on in that brief span of time. "Dagger, you go next. Then I'll help Vivi up, and grab one for myself. Quina, will you be alright on your own?"

"Drake have unique scent. I follow." Drake tilted his head to the side, looking at the Qu oddly as Dagger jumped onto her Gargant, showing some considerable acrobatic skill, but dismissed it as he picked Vivi up and helped him onto a Gargant.

"Alright. We'll wait for you on the other side." Drake held up his flower, and let the Gargant take it, jumping up and grabbing hold of the bug's carapace and hooking his heels just behind its head, looking forward and up. He couldn't help but wonder how Quina was going to follow.

It was quite a while before he spotted the others waving to him and he waited for the Gargant to be directly over them before unhooking his heels and dropping down. He huffed as he landed a bit stiffly, landing on his rear. Zidane helped him up and dusted him off.

"Where's Quina?" Drake looked back the way they came, a frown on his face. Zidane tilted his head to the side with a quizzical look on his face.

"Said he'd catch up to us. Not sure if he can, though. That was going straight up." Zidane sighed a bit and crossed his arms. "So much for having another fighter in the group." Dagger looked back, and smiled a bit.

"I'm sure Quina will catch up to us. Qus are known to take a promise of good food seriously. Quina will do his or her best to catch up." Zidane and Drake looked to each other, and then shrugged at the same time. Neither of them had Dagger's confidence on the matter, but they weren't about to say anything otherwise to her.

A sound made Drake look towards the stairs, and he blinked before trotting that way, ignoring the yell Zidane cast after him. The sound got louder, and the small headache that had been nagging Drake since the dash across the bridge got stronger. A few more steps, and he emerged into a cavern that showed definite signs of habitation.

"You here for-Hey!" Drake blinked towards the man that spoke, his headache getting suddenly worse. "It's you! How are you?" Drake merely stared at the man in confusion as Zidane and the others trotted up behind him.

"Drake, you know this guy?" The archer turned to look at Zidane, one hand reaching up to his head to rub his temples.

"Drake? I thought your name was...Hey, you alright?" The archer had suddenly cringed, his headache getting worse.

"Drake!" Three pairs of hands caught him as he fell forwards. He felt a cure spell wash over him, but it didn't do much to his headache. He grimaced as he gripped his head with both hands, groaning at the pain. "Sleep!" The spell washed over him, and all tension left his body as he slipped into unconsciousness.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Dagger looked down at the man that lay curled up on the ground, his face still creased in pain, even in his sleep. The man that had greeted the archer looked shaken, and looked to Zidane. The thief looked concerned.

"Much worse than last time. Maybe bringing him with was a bad idea..." Zidane sighed a bit and pulled Drake's hands away from his head, frowning slightly.

"What 'appened to 'im?" Zidane looked at the man warily. "I met 'im when 'e came through these tunnels, comin' from t'other way. Introduced 'imself as Wolfe." Zidane's eyes widened a little and then softened as he looked down at the archer.

"He can't remember his past. He started to remember a bit, and then started to get bad headaches." The miner's eyes widened.

"Maid'n, Muther, Crone'n Lord..." The strange oath made the others stare at the miner as he sighed. "Worst thing t'appen t'a clansman. When'd 'is memories get burried?" Zidane tilted his head to the side and narrowed one eye at the miner.

"Clansman?" The miner looked Zidane solidly in the eyes, as if weighing him and his ability to keep a secret.

"Nay, it's best I don't tell ye if he's havin' headaches jus' by meetin' sommun 'e stayed with for a few days. As is, I'm t'only one based outta this 'ere camp 'e spent much time talkin' to." Drake groaned softly, and all four conscious eople looked down at him. "'E should be layin' up'n a soft bed, not 'ere on t'ground. C'mon, bunk's're this way." The miner stood with a grunt and gestured for the others to follow him. Zidane slung Drake's arm across his shoulders and Dagger ducked under the other, helping him to carry the tall archer after the miner. Vivi did his best to pitch in, carrying Dagger's pack as he waddled along after them.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

"Wolfe!"

"Wolfe! C'mon man, your mom made somethin' special for your birthday!" Drake blinked his eyes open, and hopped out of bed, stumbling as legs weak from several hours of sleep complained about the sudden movement. For a moment, he was confused, until he recognized that he was having a dream.

"What'd she make?" The two boys that had woken him, both blondes with their long hair tied back, exchanged grins, their identical faces lighting up.

"Come an' see!" The two charged off, dropping through a hatch in the floor and thudding into the ground below. Drake pulled on a pair of rough trousers and a loose cream shirt before doing the same.

"Wolfe! How many times have I told you not to do that?" Drake/Wolfe grinned sheepishly towards the woman by the hearth, who was waving a wooden spoon at him with a small frown on her face.

"Sorry, Ma." Wolfe didn't sound in the least sorry, but the woman's frown melted away into a fond smile. She held out her empty hand, and Wolfe trotted over to hug her, his head only reaching her shoulder.

"You're so accident prone yet. I don't want t' have to heal you again." Wolfe grinned widely, and peered at what his mother had been stirring. "Get yourself out and doing your chores. You'll get breakfast when it's done." Wolfe pouted at his mother, but trotted obediently to the door and sat to pull socks and boots on his feet before he was out the wooden door and running.

The two blonde quickly outstripped him as they raced to the barn, each carrying a bucket. It was then that Drake was able to tell that their hair was actually two different lengths. One had hair that fell to between his shoulder blades, and the other had hair just barely long enough to be pulled back.

"Sab! Ed! Wait up!" Neither boy slowed, and the ground was suddenly in Wolfe's face. "Augh!" The footsteps ahead slowed, and then came back.

"Wolfe! You alright?" Wolfe pushed himself up and then sat carefully, hugging his knee. His pants had torn, showing a bleeding gash just below his knee. "Ooh! Ed, I'm gonna run and get th'lady." One of the twins, Drake couldn't tell from the front, ran past, probably back to the building the three of them had just left.

"Wolfe, what happened? Did you trip?" The boy Drake was watching from nodded, sniffles coming from him. "Alright, let's get you up and back to your mum." Wolfe looped an arm over Ed's shoulders, and limped back the way they came.

By the time they got there, the woman was pouring boiling water into a wooden bowl. She gestured for Wolfe to sit on a stool by the hearth, and he did so. Sab returned from another room, his arms full of a few rolls of bandages.

"I don't need that many. Wolfe, let me see." The boy whimpered softly as his trousers were pulled up over the injury. A cloth dipped in the hot water dabbed gently at the injury, and the boy flinched at the heat. "Cure." The familiar sensation of healing magic washed over him, and the woman frowned. "Deeper than I thought. Wolfe, how do you keep getting hurt?" The boy sniffled again as his mother took a bandage from Sab and tenderly wrapped it around Wolfe's injury, and up around his knee.

"It's kinda our fault...We were racing..." Wolfe's mother glanced to Ed, her dark eyes soft. Wolfe was meanwhile stretching his leg out, wincing as he tested what his body would let him do.

"You two know better. Shoo and go do your chores, the three of you. And you two no racing." Wolfe stood and limped out the door. Sab and Ed followed him, both still carrying their buckets. Drake could feel himself floating, and everything went dark again.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Next Drake was able to see, he was standing behind a rather tall rock, hearing a battle going on beyond. A couple of people stood on either side of the rock, their purple-y black armor ringing a bell in his head. One of them turned to talk to the other, and paused, looking directly at Drake.

"Hunh. Thought he was lying. Anton!" The one that was still paying attention to the battle beyond the stone turned his head a little, but not all the way. "ANTON!" The man grunted and turned around, a scowl on his dark face.

"What do you want, Ailbhe?" The one that had noticed Drake nodded her hooded head towards the living Chosen. "Eh? Oh. Old man wasn't joking. Andreas was replaced." The dark man, Anton, turned and shot an arrow while barely sighting.

"We weren't expecting you to show up so soon. Old Fabool said that you were improving fast. There a war on your side?" Drake nodded, still looking around. "And y'popped up in the middle of a battle here. You got crap luck." The living one shrugged a bit.

"Had crap luck my whole life. Doesn't seem about to stop, either." Ailbhe eyed him a bit oddly, but then turned and shot an arrow from her silver bow as a figure in white armor came around the stone. The dark fletched arrow slid through the figure's visor, and down they went.

"Destined one, then. Awfully rare." Drake lifted an eyebrow as Anton moved to the side of the rock. Drake moved then, and peered around the stone that the two were using to their tactical advantage.

The battlefield beyond the barrier was scattered with clumps of fighters. The heavily-armed knights seemed to be fighting alone, whereas the others were fighting in organized groups. There was one clump that was bigger than the rest, with several archers shouting in between loosing arrows that seemed to simply form in their hands. Ailbhe looked where he was looking, and smiled.

"Aye, if you act on your potential, you'll be counted amongst that number. Gaia always seems to reveal the Destined when there's the most need for 'em. Last 'mongst our number was Fabool. You prob'ly know him as Cid the First." Drake jumped a little, and looked at her, his eyes wide.

"Cid the First? That explains a good deal about Lindblum, then." Anton turned and smirked at Drake, his hand resting on the belt he wore. Drake could see now that he had a quiver on his back. Ailbhe didn't.

"Aye, it does. How fares it?" Drake winced a bit, and turned to look back at the battlefield. The knights seemed to be falling rather quickly now, for some reason.

"Partially destroyed. The queen of Alexandria stole something from the girl she raised as her daughter. Summons, I think." The two Chosen that Drake had appeared nearby sucked their breath in suddenly. Drake glanced at them, and blinked as Ailbhe tugged down her black hood, revealing her somewhat mussed hair, held back by dark grey wrappings extending down her very long hair. The tail had been peeking out of her hood.

Now that Drake got a good look at her, he couldn't help but stare. Her eyes were a grey so light they almost looked silver, and she had painted her lips and eyelids the same shade. On top of that, she was stunningly beautiful, with a thin, angular face and high cheekbones.

"The summoners are yet unrepresented where you are...There's been some talk that they'll join the knights." Drake frowned a little, and dipped his head, crossing his arms. A part of him couldn't help but want to fix the problems here. The dead had fought their whole lives. Fighting after they've been buried for centuries just seemed unfair. Never mind that Drake was apparently destined to do the same.

"There are new types of fighters emerging. Cid the First told me that the war is because the knights are running out of people following their steps. I haven't heard anything of the Dark Knights, but I've encountered a Paladin." Anton stared at Drake, and then lifted a gloved hand to run his fingers over the gaps in the braids his black hair had been plaited into, running from his forehead to the back of his head. The half-cape he wore rustled as he did so, and the man sighed.

"The last Dark Knight has fallen, then? There is no return for them, unless the Constellato listen to the pleas of their Chosen." Anton and Ailbhe touched the metal feather that secured the harnesses protecting their shoulders.

"What are the fighters you speak of?" Drake smiled a little to Anton's direct move on to the subject that had caught his attention. Ailbhe was peering towards the battlefield.

"Black mages. The red mages, I know, are able to use the elemental spells, but I've been traveling with a boy who casts only those spells, and with more skill and power behind them than I've seen in any red mage but one." Anton looked now, as Ailbhe turned to Drake.

"And that one has wronged you in some way, yes? I can see it in your face." Drake sighed a bit, and looked towards the battlefield.

"She played with my heart, and then I discovered that her loyalties lay with the one responsible for the war that has consumed the known land. That Paladin there is heading this way." Ailbhe and Anton both knocked arrows and pointed them at the approaching knight, who sheathed his gleaming sword and held both his hands up. At least, Drake thought it was a man. The face under the silver hair looked rather androgynous.

"Hold your arrows, friends. It's me." Anton squinted at the paladin, and then slowly released the tension in his bow, Ailbhe doing the same. Drake lifted an eyebrow at that, wondering how many Paladins and Dark Knights were fighting against the others.

"Cecil. You ought to announce yourself sooner. We of the Sagittarius have a boost right now." The Paladin's eyebrows shot up, and he looked around. Drake couldn't help but grin and link his hands behind his head, remembering when Cid Fabool the First had told him that only a Chosen of Sagittarius would be able to see him.

"Ah? The others were clueless as to how they were suddenly performing better. He is here?" Anton glanced to Drake, and laughed as he saw the young man's easy stance.

"Aye, he's here. And knows you can't see him." Cecil laughed, throwing his head back. Drake was sure then that he was a man. It was the very rare woman who would laugh like that.

"I see. Is he as sharp as Fabool said he was?" Ailbhe nodded, already tugging her hood up as she moved to cover the others.

"A Destined one, for sure. He has news of the living world. Lindblum has been attacked. Your home has started a war." Cecil looked pained at that, and looked down.

"Once more? If only the rulers of that kingdom were as incorruptible as the people living there believed." Drake tilted his head to the side, lifting his eyebrow. He was apparently missing something.

"Lad." Drake turned to look at Ailbhe, who was near him now. She wordlessly held her hand out, and Drake looked at her for a moment before taking her hand. Her glove felt smooth against his palm, and intensely cold. The young man almost jerked away from her at how frigid her grasp was, but controlled himself at the last moment. "It's time you woke."

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

**End notes: **I still feel so bad for derping so much...


	11. Stagnant Air

**Authoress' note: **Augh, I'm so sorry! I meant to get this chapter out sooner, but the one I was working on stalled me for too long! Not to mention work and school exhausted my muse. Stupid programming class. Making me think logically.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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Chapter 11: Stagnant Air

Drake twitched a bit as his eyes popped open, and groaned as he immediately closed them again, curling up in a vain attempt to protect his aching head. He didn't even have time to pay attention to his surroundings because just being conscious made his head ache and throb uncontrollably.

"Drake..." A Cure spell eased the ache a bit, enough so that he allowed Dagger to make him uncurl. "You're awake, finally." Drake warily slid one eye open. The princess was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

"How...long...?" A groan came from Drake as his head ached even more as he tried to talk. Dagger casted a Cura spell on him, and eased the pain to a much more bearable level.

"You've been unconscious for several days. Everyone's been worried. Even Quina." Drake blinked, finding his headache finally allowing him to open both his eyes. He was able to feel a few other aches and pains, like his throat and his stomach.

"Quina...made it...?" Drake coughed a little, and cleared his throat with a wince. He really needed some water. Dagger pulled a waterskin from somewhere out of Drake's sight, and helped him to drink some of it.

"Yes. He complained about how hard it was to follow, but he got here. I can't exactly tell how long ago, with no sunlight to tell the time." Drake nodded, and sighed as the water eased his throat.

"Yeah, I imagine. Said I was out for several days, though?" Dagger blushed a bit as Drake brought up what she'd said just a moment ago.

"That's what the miners were saying. They were kind enough to share rations with us. Zidane and Vivi are out helping them, and learning the tunnels. They really are a maze...I don't know how the miners can stand it." Drake shrugged a little, and leaned forward to rest his face in his hands, trying to block out the pain in his head.

All sorts of images were flitting through his head, and Drake didn't have the concentration or patience to even try to piece them together into memories. All that Dagger's cure spells did was dampen the buzz that was blocking out everything.

Drake must have spaced out because of the pain, because the next thing he knew, he was being shaken by a pale Zidane. The man sighed with relief as he saw Drake blinking at him, and plopped down on the edge of the bed Drake was still sitting on.

"You scared all of us there. Dagger said you just stopped reacting, even to her cure spells." Drake smiled apologetically, though it looked more grimace than anything else.

"Sorry. The ache really hasn't gotten much better. I was trying to see if concentrating would help it any." Zidane lifted an eyebrow, and Drake chuckled shortly. "Hey, it works sometimes." The archer stretched, and sighed as he cracked his neck.

"Right. Well, at least you're awake again. You scared all of us when you collapsed." Drake sighed a bit and rubbed at his head, his fingers ruffling his slightly flattened hair.

"Sorry. I wish that it didn't happen, myself. I...can't really remember what triggered it, either." Zidane chuckled a bit, and then laughed outright as Drake's stomach growled loudly.

"Well, as soon as you feel up to it, we'll head off. The miners showed me and Vivi the way to the next miner camp, and we should be able to find our way out from there. They like Quina's cooking, though. I'll go grab you a bowl of whatever soup that Qu made." Drake nodded a bit, and stretched more as Zidane got up and headed out of the room.

Drake looked around, taking in his surroundings. Strange crystals encased in lanterns lit the way into the chamber, and a metal tube snaked along the top of the tunnel like a root, though Drake had a feeling that it was for fresh air. There was the echo of distant chatter that reached his ears, but he wasn't able to tell what anything that was said was. The only thing he could smell was the earth all around him. He was relieved to see timber supports ensuring that there wouldn't be a cave-in, though some of the angles the timbers were at worried him a little.

Drake had moved to the floor to stretch his legs out when Zidane came back in, and the archer sighed as his back cracked a bit before sitting up and looking at the man he considered his brother. Zidane had an odd look on his face, and a covered wooden bowl in his hands. The enchanted pouch that Drake had won from the Hunt Festival was hanging from his elbow. The archer figured that one of his friends had kept it with them to ensure it was safe.

"I had no idea you were that flexible. Your armor actually restricts you a bit, doesn't it?" Drake nodded, and reached for the bowl as Zidane offered it to him. He smiled as he felt the warmth seeping out of the polished wood. A spoon was set into the lid, so Drake plucked that off before crossing his legs and settling the fair sized bowl in his lap.

"Quina choose this portion?" Zidane laughed at Drake's question as the archer tipped the lid enough to let the steam pour out. The scent that came from the stew made Drake's stomach growl even louder, and he dug in immediately, though he was careful to not eat too fast.

"Yeah. Said that you hadn't eaten for a while, so you had to make up for it." Drake hummed a bit and chewed at the piece of meat that he'd picked up with his spoon. It wasn't the jerky he'd bought as rations, but he didn't want to ask what it was, for fear of it being something he'd rather go without knowing about. An idea hit the archer, and he chewed a little slower as he tugged the idea in front of the buzz of mixed memories.

In the game, there had been a lot of water in the tunnel. He had yet to see any outside of a container, and, now that he thought about it, it didn't really make sense. The tunnel they were in was going under the see, so if there were rivers in the tunnel, it would be flooding the tunnel, as it would fill up the lower tunnels. Though perhaps he simply wasn't grasping the depth of the tunnel, or where the water was coming from. He couldn't deny that the air was rather humid, though.

"Drake?" The archer blinked as he heard his name called, and turned his eyes to Zidane, who chuckled. "You're thinking again. Your head doesn't hurt?" Drake took another bite of his stew, and nodded. "Still?" A hasty swallow, and Drake cleared his throat a bit.

"I'm figuring out how to ignore it. You know how your ears ring after you get knocked in the head? It's a little like that." Zidane lifted an eyebrow at him, and tilted his head to the side as he sat on the floor next to Drake.

"You've been hit in the head too many times, then." Drake snorted and found a piece of some tuber, and chewed on that. He shrugged after a moment, and sighed a bit as he found his stomach was starting to feel full. He wasn't even halfway done with what Quina had sent him.

"Maybe. I've got at least two scars on my head, and who knows how many times I hit it without leaving a lasting mark. I am pretty clumsy." Zidane chuckled a little, and then leaned forward suddenly, his eyes intense.

"Hey, wait. You're unlucky, but not clumsy. Did you remember something?" Drake blinked a bit, and sipped at some of the broth in the stew. Well, it wasn't quite broth. The starch from the tubers ensured that.

"I'm...not sure, really." Drake didn't look to Zidane, so he wouldn't have to see his brother's crestfallen look. Zidane wanted Drake to remember so badly, and Drake was only getting more and more confused as time went on. "It's kinda...fuzzy."

"Hm. You might have. Cause I remember Dagger saying something about you being graceful, after the Hunt Festival." Drake nearly choked on a tuber, and looked incredulously at his grinning friend. "No joke."

"How am I considered graceful?" Zidane chuckled a bit, and his tail waved behind him.

"Well, when you're moving and shooting at the same time, you don't jerk like most people do. Your movements are all pretty fluid. That's pretty graceful right there. And when you're running, it's sorta like watching one of those wild animals that runs away from people rather than at them. You can cover a lot of ground really fast, if you feel like it. I've seen it myself, in the middle of battle." Drake set down his spoon and scratched behind his ear, looking down.

"...I...guess that counts...I know I run different from city folk. I never feel like there's enough open space in the city for me to run right. I always feel like I'm just plodding along. Best I felt was during the Hunt Festival, when no one else was in the streets." Zidane chuckled a bit, his tail moving from one side to the other.

"And that was when I was too busy to watch, so we'll just have to take Dagger's word on how you moved then. But it still felt too closed up without anyone in your way?" Drake nodded, and carefully put the lid back on top of the bowl. He was done eating.

"Yeah. The streets turned too much, too fast, and the street wasn't exactly level, especially in the Garden District. The plateau outside the city was fun to run across, though. So long as I watched my step." Zidane picked up the bowl and cracked his neck a little.

"Hunh. I always found traveling in the country more tiring than traveling in the city. The ground's more uneven." Drake shrugged, and gently massaged his head. He was starting to get a headache again. It wasn't as incessant as before, thankfully, but it still made thinking hard to do.

"Drake?" The archer lifted his head, and blinked at Dagger, who was walking in. "How're you feeling?" Drake forced himself to smile a bit and drop his hands from his head, as if he wasn't in pain.

"Well, I'm not hungry anymore. I don't think I want to ask what was in the stew, though. I don't imagine that there are too many kinds of creatures underground that I'd care to know I'm eating." Dagger giggled a little, and walked up to Drake. He didn't even flinch as he felt her hand press gently against his forehead.

"I'm not feeling feverish." Dagger grinned a little at Drake, and then tugged a little on his bangs. "Ow."

"You were while you were unconscious. I'd say you're fit to travel again." Drake smiled and stood before looking around. He spotted his armor and pulled it on, having an easier time with the pauldron than he did at first. It was still undeniably the armor of an archer, seeing as all the armor was designed not to catch the bowstring. It was better than not wearing any armor at all, though.

"Zidane and Quina been gathering supplies for the trip?" Dagger nodded, and helped Drake attach his pouch back onto his belt.

"Quina more than Zidane. Said something about not having the proper amount of supplies." Drake chuckled softly, and stretched, double-checking that his had full range of motion.

"Drake! You're up!" The archer turned as Vivi stumbled into the room, and strode over to catch him just before he fell. "You're up! Are you okay?" Drake laughed a bit, and scooped Vivi up into the air, and settled him on his shoulder. The ceiling was thankfully tall enough so that the boy didn't hit his head. "W-woah!"

"I'm feeling pretty good, Vivi. How about you tell me how we're gonna get to the other continent?"

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Drake waved to the miners before he turned the corner in the tunnel and then trotted after the rest. For some reason, he was lagging behind, though he could see Dagger turning every once in a while to look back at him. He could tell she suspected that he wasn't feeling as good as he acted.

Drake himself had to admit that he was a bit surprised by how quickly he'd bounced back from the pain. He was also a little surprised by how friendly all the miners were, too. All but one, though. He hadn't seen the miner that had first greeted him the entire time.

Zidane led them to a Gargant waystation, and then told them to wait while he went to flip a switch. Drake crossed his arms, but the look pointed at him by Dagger said that she wasn't going to let the two men to go off by themselves. Zidane was back not long later, anyhow, and passed out the flowers that the gargants liked before leading them down another tunnel.

"The miners usually use the gargants to get from one place to the next, but after Drake collapsed, I don't think I want to try it much. Besides, Quina doesn't like the big bugs." Drake lifted an eyebrow as the thief announced why he was leading them around on foot. "The next leg of the trip, though, we have to use the gargants. The connecting tunnel is up." Drake sighed a little, and glanced at Quina. The Qu was just plodding along as if s/he hadn't heard what was said.

"Trip's gonna take longer that way..." Drake winced as he noticed that there was a slight whine to his voice. He hadn't meant for it to be there, but...Well, he was an archer. He belonged where the wind blew and the sun shined!

"If it keeps you from having a broken neck, I wouldn't mind if it took a year to get through." Drake groaned, and growled slightly as he heard Dagger giggle. Torch crystals lit an area ahead of them. "Ah, here's the stop."

Already, the archer was feeling tired of seeing dark, damp, gloomy earth. How these flowers grew underground, he still couldn't quite figure out. There was a lot on Gaia that made no sense in terms of evolution or physics. He supposed that those things simply had to be chalked up to magic.

"Alright, so first gargant is me and Drake, then Vivi and Dagger, and Quina, you get the third one, when it comes by. You'll spot us where our stop is." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that, wondering how they were supposed to double up on the gargants. But, like the others, he nodded, fiddling with his flower.

Chittering soon echoed down to them, and Drake lifted his flower to attract the attention of the nearing gargant, seeing as he was taller than Zidane was. The thief jumped up and then held the flower he held in front of the gargant, close enough for it to grab it. Drake jumped up to grab hold of the giant bug's carapace, and found a spot to hook his heels before locking his joints so he would stay on. Zidane seemed to have a comfortable spot, hanging onto a couple of horns on its head.

With a jerk, they were off. Drake winced as the sudden motion aggravated his joints, but didn't make any noise, not wanting to spook the creature. Zidane seemed to have the same idea, as he was just as quiet.

They were on the gargant for quite a while, and Drake was starting to wonder if they were ever going to get off so he could get feeling back in his hands when Zidane started to move a bit, craning to get a look at something. The archer didn't have the foggiest idea what the thief could have been looking at, because the only view he had was of his best friend's furry tail.

"Our stop's coming up. You alright back there?" Drake blinked as he realized that Zidane's tail had deliberately been touching him the entire time, as a way for Zidane to ensure that his friend was still there.

"Stiff, and wondering if I'll ever feel anything through my fingers again, but yeah." A soft chuckle drifted to Drake's ears, and the archer looked towards the drop zone as his friend jumped off the gargant.

The archer landed with a grunt, and winced as he sat down hard, his legs not accepting the shock of the landing. He had managed to avoid landing in a puddle, though. He accepted Zidane's help in getting up, and then brushed himself off and stretched, grimacing as he twisted around.

"Didn't think that we were gonna be hanging on for so long. You alright, Zidane?" The thief was brushing himself off, and walked over to the edge of the gap in the tunnel, cupping a hand around his ear to listen. "You hear them coming yet?"

"No. There was a moogle at that last camp that sold me a tent, and I shoved it in your pouch. Think you can pull it out again?" Drake lifted at his friend, who held his hands up in a placating manner. "Hey, I didn't dig around in it. I just put one thing in there, and that was the tent." The archer rolled his eyes a little and reached into his pouch, thinking of the tent. He tugged it out, and then looked around.

"Where do we set it up?" Zidane looked around, and then pointed to a fairly dry patch that wasn't directly under where the Gargants went. "Alright. Give me a hand?" Zidane nodded, and between the two of them, they managed to figure out how the tent was supposed to be set up.

Drake noticed that Zidane was distracted the entire time, though, and once the tent was set up, the archer gently tugged on Zidane's tail to get his attention. The monkey-tailed thief frowned at Drake, who by now could faintly hear something coming up the tunnel.

"Go sit by the tunnel. You're worried about the others. I'll be fine by myself." Zidane hesitated, and then went to do what Drake suggested, leaving the archer to crawl into the tent, where he finally allowed himself to grab his head.

His headache wasn't as horrible as it had been when he woke up, but it was still worse than he was letting on. He wasn't going to be able to fight in this state, if there were any monsters that decided to show up. There were monster protection spells woven into the fabric of the tent, so at least he wouldn't be bothered here.

"Oof!"

"Ow!"

Drake dropped his hands as he heard Dagger and Vivi yelp, likely because they had just landed. A bit of a laugh from Zidane followed, and Drake sighed before running his hands over his head one last time and crawled out of the tent. The entrance just wasn't built for someone as tall as him.

Dagger and Vivi were both getting helped up by Zidane, looking a little stiff and grouchy. Vivi stumbled over to hug Drake as soon as he spotted him, and Drake gently patted the boy's hat.

"You alright, Drake?" The archer looked to Dagger, and nodded a little, though he knew he was likely looking tired. Being underground was making him exhausted, though. "Why don't you try to take a nap while we're waiting for Quina?" Drake sighed a little, and closed his eyes to assess how much energy he had.

"That...actually sounds good. I didn't think that hanging onto a giant bug would take so much energy." Dagger giggled a little, and Drake retreated back to the tent. He actually was needing a nap. He only hoped that it would make his head feel better.

The archer arranged himself so that he wasn't taking up half the tent, and then tucked his arm under his head, sighing as he closed his eyes. He fell asleep almost immediately.

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"Wolfe!" Again? Drake opened his eyes, only to find that he was neither in the tent he'd fallen asleep in, nor under the roof of the last dream he'd had of the boy named Wolfe. Instead, he was apparently in a tree, rather high up and on a branch. "Wolfe! C'mon, you know it's not fair when we play hide an' seek!" Drake/Wolfe had to grin at that, and carefully stretched, having apparently woken up from a nap. The yelling was from a fair distance away.

"Yeah! We've already decided that you're the winner, so come on! We don't want to tell your mom we lost you again!" Wolfe undid a bit of rope that was around his hips, and coiled it up before tying it to the back of his belt. He then turned and started to pick his way down the tree. There wasn't much of a rustle as he moved smoothly from branch to branch, though there was one as he dropped the last bit and landed on the leaf-strewn ground.

Drake could already tell that there had been some time passed between the last dream and this dream, just by how tall Wolfe seemed. The nearby buildings didn't seem to be quite so large, and the tree that Wolfe had just dropped out of was one that he'd glimpsed in the previous dream, as the boys had ran past it.

"Wooolfe!" The two young men were still calling, even as Wolfe padded lightly along the forest floor. He moved from tree to tree, his feet barely making a sound in the twigs, sticks, and leaves layered on the dirt.

Finally, the two young men that were calling for him came into view, though Wolfe had inched his way into a bush to spy on them. They were standing back to back, so Drake could tell that they had the exact same shade of hair, though one still kept his hair longer than the other, who was starting to look more buff than his twin.

"Ugh. This is your fault, Ed. You were the one that suggested the game." The thinner young man sighed at his brother's accusation, and yelled Wolfe's name again.

"Well, you were the one that suggested we do something other than hunt together. When'd Wolfe get so curst good at hiding, though? He's middling fair with a bow, and horrid with a sword!" Wolfe's face split in a broad grin.

"It comes from being able to set snares." Both young men jumped as Wolfe called out to them, and looked around almost frantically. "And because I'm middling fair with a bow, as you put it, Ed, I have to get closer to my target. I learned how to walk silently." The bush rustled as Wolfe backed out of it and stood up, brushing leaf litter off of his tan shirt.

The two brothers groaned at how Wolfe had managed to sneak up on them so easily. Ed, the skinny one with longer hair, planted his face in his hand, and Sab shook his head with a wry grin.

"Way to live up to your reputation there, Wolfe. Where'd you hide?" Wolfe chuckled a bit and lifted a finger to point upwards.

"You two never look up. I hide in trees because it's out of the way." The brunette stretched with an exaggerated yawn before linking his fingers behind his head. "I had a pretty nice nap, though. Had a knot digging into my back, but I needed that nap." Drake could feel that Wolfe's hair fell to his shoulders, but was tied back like the hair of the two in front of him. Some of his bangs fell into his eyes, and that was how Drake could tell that he had brown hair. Almost the exact same shade as Drake's, too.

"Ugh, you lazy bum." All three of them burst out laughing after Ed called Wolfe a name, but went silent as soon as they heard a wolf howl. All three looked in that direction, then exchanged glances. "...Been a long time since I last heard that during the day. We'd best go tell the elder." The other two nodded, their amusement gone. They trotted towards the village, which was nearby enough. The sound of the twins trotting completely wiped out Wolfe's.

The howl had been faint, but close enough to the village to make them all a bit nervous. Drake could sort of figure out why, seeing as wolves were undeniably unpredictable creatures. But for the most part, wolves left people alone.

Drake's perception of the world spun, and the next thing he knew, Wolfe was sitting in front of a fire with Ed and Sab, and the other two looked a little older. Drake could feel how cold they all were, even through what was apparently several layers of furs. The wind whistling through the cracks in the walls was eerie, the howls of the wolves beyond that, even eerier.

"Truly a Wolf Winter. Jus' our luck that it's our first winter outside th' guest lodge, an' yours outside the chief's." Ed and Sab were bundled up almost to the point where they weren't identifiable, their blond heads the only thing peeking out of the various furs. "You were really born on a winter night like this?" Wolfe nodded, and looked back to the fire. There was plenty of firewood stacked next to the hearth, including what was probably a Yule Log.

"In the dark of night, with wolves howling all about the lodge. Soon's I was born, I wailed, and the wolves all howled one last time before leavin'." Sab chuckled from his cocoon of fur.

"Ah, they was jus' greetin' their name-brother." Ed chuckled then, and then shivered.

"How can you stand to not be all bundled up? We've been living here with you lot for years, an' it's still way too cold!" Wolfe grinned and grabbed a mug of hot something before gulping a mouthful down. "...Don't tell me that's it." Wolfe laughed, tilting his head back as he did so. A wolf barked in reply, just outside their door.

"Tea's how I learned how t'do it from my ma. My pop has his mead. Dunno how the rest do it." Wolfe stood, adjusting the fur around his shoulders, and grabbed a flute from the mantle. "I know everyone's got different ways to cope with bein' indoors so long, though. Ma's got her stitchwork and housework. Da whittles things. Th' blacksmith never stops his forge. Me, I got my music." Wolfe sat down with a huff, and tugged his furs around him again. Ed lifted an eyebrow at that, and Wolfe grinned.

"You play music?" He didn't sound convinced. Sab merely chuckled, and unwrapped a little, sweat marking his shirt. Ed noticed this and narrowed his eyes at his brother. "You're just as bad as he is at fooling me. You aren't cold!" Sab and Wolfe shared a laugh before Drake stretched out on his cot, which he was sitting on. There were only three cots in the one room lodge, and all were arranged around the hearth.

"You can be so gullible sometimes, Ed. Oi, Wolfe, how long d'you s'pose the blizzard's gonna last?" Wolfe cradled the back of his head with his hands, and yawned a little, then hummed before answering.

"Probably another day or two. And even then, we'll have to keep an eye out for wolves." Wolfe took a deep breath in. Drake could see bunches of herbs hanging from the rafters, giving a slight spicy scent to the air. "So what're you two gonna do with all this time, seein' as y'don't have as many folk to bug?" Wolfe grinned as he turned his head to look at his two friends. Ed was still looking rather miffed, though Sab was stretching his joints a bit.

"Hm...Carving sounds good t'me. Only question is what to make." Ed looked to his twin to see what he made of the idea, only to see Sab shrug.

"I'm able to entertain myself with my thoughts just well. I may's well figger out how to meditate." Wolfe chuckled a bit, and then sat back up, picking his flute up and twirling it in his fingers idly. "I get the feeling it might not be easy to do, with Wolfe's hobby. How 'bout you play some now? Might make your name-brothers go away." Wolfe snorted a bit, but tilted his head from side to side as he pondered what to play.

Finally, he lifted his flute to his lips. Drake couldn't see anything, as Wolfe had closed his eyes, but he could hear the music. It was very familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The wolves had stopped howling and barking as soon as Wolfe had started to play. It was an almost melancholy tune, and fairly simple despite the flourishes that the young man had added.

The only sound for a while after the last note ended was the wind, and then the wolves all howled at once. All three young men looked to the door before looking at each other. Wolfe rubbed his arm a little, smiling sheepishly.

"...They really do stop and listen. No wonder I've heard other villages refer to ours as 'the village of wolves'." Wolfe blinked at Ed, who had tucked himself even deeper in his furs. "I've got chills from that." Sab chuckled, but he was also rubbing his arms.

"So do I, but...Who called our village that?" Wolfe tucked his feet under himself, resting his elbows on his knees. His flute was still in his hand, though it was just being flipped around and around.

"One of the ones closer to those sky-worshippers. Y'know the ones as don't heed the old ways?" Wolfe sneered a little, and rotated his shoulders a little.

"The ones as the Hunt takes." Wolfe spat into the fire, as if to get the taste out of his mouth. "Grey Wanderer punish them, they mock us that remember." Sab and Ed murmured as well, and all three marked a crescent on their foreheads with their thumbs.

Drake's perspective spun again, and he blinked his eyes open. He groaned a little and sat up, rubbing his face with his hand as he looked about. He was back in the tent, so he wasn't watching from Wolfe's eyes, and nor was he on the battlefield. He was in the tunnels, where he was pretty much worthless in a fight. And he was still groggy from his nap.

"Drake?" The archer didn't react to his name being called for a moment, and then blinked at the tent's opening. Dagger was peering in at him, and he smiled at her a little. "Feeling a bit better?" Drake nodded, running his fingers through his bangs.

"Yeah. A little groggy, but not about to fall over anymore." Dagger smiled, but casted Cure on him. Drake sighed a little as his headache faded enough for him to actually be able to think clearly again. "Thanks. That helps a lot." Dagger backed up, and Drake slid out before standing and stretching. "So how long was I asleep?" A glance around told him that Quina had yet to arrive, while Zidane and Vivi were chatting over by the tunnel entrance.

"Long enough for me to find out you snore slightly." Drake jerked at Dagger's teasing tone, and blinked at her with his eyes wide. She started to giggle at the look he was giving her, and he huffed a little as he looked away. "You really do. It's not terribly loud, though. I doubt anyone else would have noticed." Drake groaned a little and shook his head, then perked up as he heard distant chittering. "What is it?" Drake glanced at Dagger before trotting to where Zidane and Vivi were.

"Drake?" The archer crouched by the tunnel and tilted his head a little, then chuckled. "Okay, what's up? You're laughing about something." Drake stood and backed up a bit before looking at the others.

"You can't hear it? There's a gargant coming." The others all looked at Drake oddly, but Zidane suddenly perked up, his tail flicking as his head tilted.

"...Hey, I can hear it now. How come Drake heard it first?" Drake shrugged with a grin, and opened his mouth to reply without thinking about it.

"Prob'ly cause I'm a country boy." Drake's head felt like it buzzed, and he shook it, holding his hand to his forehead. "Okay, my head feels weird now." Dagger case cure over him, and they all looked up as the gargant arrived, its burden dropping into the gap they'd prepared for him/her. "Hi Quina. Glad y'could hang on long enough."

The Qu picked itself up and dusted off before turning to look at the others. "Me no like bugs. Too big to eat. Too hard to catch." Drake laughed a bit, and moved to the tent.

"I suppose that's how they survive. Zidane, are we heading off, or should we keep the tent up?" Zidane looked at the others, and then crossed his arms, thinking.

"I think we're all good to keep going, if Quina isn't too stiff from hanging on so long." They all looked to Quina, who was stretching a little, but nodded to show that s/he was ready to go. "Alright, let's pack up the tent and get going." Drake nodded and trotted to the tent, somehow taking it down a lot easier than he had while putting it up. He even was able to get it into the package it had come from, too. He slid it into his pouch, and then stretched, his back popping.

"Ooh. Didn't think that was still stiff." Zidane chuckled a little, waiting for him by the tunnel entrance. The others had already wandered down it a bit.

"So you're a country boy, huh? Explains your running. And your accent. Your weird taste in food and clothing, too." Drake tilted his head a bit, blinking.

"Food and clothes? Really? I just eat what tastes good and wear what I look good in." Zidane shook his head, and darted ahead as he heard Dagger's yelp. Drake was just behind him, even though he wasn't able to help much.

When they got there, though, the problem was dead, and in the process of being eaten. Drake pulled a face, but didn't get green like Zidane was. Dagger was facing away with both hands clasped over her mouth, and Vivi had tugged his hat down to hide it. Quina was being rather messy.

"Uh, Quina? It's dead. It's not going to run away anymore." Drake linked his fingers behind his head, and tilted to the side. His spine stretched a bit, and he sighed.

"It tasty." Drake rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and smirked a bit. "But I done now." Quina wiped his/her face and shook blood off of the fork s/he used.

"Good. Shall we get going again?" The others turned to look again, and Drake gently pushed Dagger and Vivi past the gory mess. He couldn't even tell what it used to be. Zidane retched a little, but followed, bringing up the rear.

A voice from where Quina was leading made the rest trot a bit to catch up. "I 'ard froom 'tothers 'at y'll w're coomin'. 'Ow'd y'loike th'garg'n's?" Drake blinked, trying to make sense of what the man was saying. He had to think a bit just to figure out why he couldn't understand him. Zidane seemed to have an easier time, though.

"They were kind enough to put up with us until Drake was feeling better. The gargants...eh, I'd be happier if we'd been able to make the trip on foot." Drake sent an odd look at Zidane, still trying to make sense of the man's words. "What?"

"I can't understand a word he said." Now it was Drake's turn to be stared at in confusion. It seemed as though the man couldn't understand Drake, either. "I have no problem understanding Quina, but I can't understand him at all." Drake waved his hand towards the miner with a small gesture. Zidane rubbed his head with a grimace, and then looked to Dagger.

"I see...Dagger, can you bring Drake over there while I talk to this guy, please? You can bring Quina, too." Dagger nodded, and Vivi shuffled a little closer to the thief while the miner chattered animatedly at the two of them.

"You really can't understand him? His accent isn't much harder to understand than your own." Drake groaned a little with frustration at Dagger's question. He ran his fingers through his hair, his fingertips automatically finding both scars that crossed the back of his head.

"I can't understand him at all. Wasn't even aware I had much of an accent til someone told me. No one ever seems to have a problem understanding me!" He threw his hands up with a growl, more bothered than this than he'd admit.

"Your accent wasn't quite so noticeable in Lindblum. It's grown stronger the more we travel." Drake groaned a little and ran his fingers through his hair again, an unhappy frown on his face.

A yelp came from Dagger as Drake had his back turned and when he turned around, Quina was on his/her back, and Dagger was backing up from a large but rather scraggly monster that Drake somehow was able to recognize as a Griffin. It looked ill, though it snapped at the princess.

Before Drake knew what he was doing, he'd ran over and kicked it in the head, smashing its head into a stalactite. The stalactite broke off, but the griffin got back up and squawked angrily at the unarmed archer. Drake didn't even flinch, side-stepping the attack that the griffon tried to hit him with before kicking it in the neck. He felt something snap, and the monster went down and didn't get back up.

"Drake!" The archer turned and blinked at Zidane, who had slowed to a trot as soon as he saw that his friend was alright. "You alright?" The brunette ran his hand through his hair and sighed a little.

"I'm not hurt, but...I'm still pretty frustrated." The griffin squawked again, trying to move, and Quina stabbed it in the head with his/her battle fork. Drake turned away at that point, not wanting to add 'sick' to the list of what he felt at the moment.

"Part of it is probably being underground. Circumstances allowing, we'll be out of the tunnels in a couple of days." Drake sighed, and then glanced at what remained of the griffin. As Drake thought, Quina had decided to use at least part of it to quell his/her hunger. "So what is that thing?" Drake sighed a little and stretched his arms over his head, wincing as he felt his stomach remind him it had been a while since he last ate.

"A griffin. Probably been underground for a while, looking at its feathers. I can't even salvage any for fletching. More likely than not, it was lost and hungry." Drake nudged the corpse with his foot, showing that the beast's feathers were matted and dirty. "How it managed to get underground, I don't know. It's a flying beast." Zidane blinked, and walked around the corpse, getting a good look at it.

"Judging by where we are, it's probably from the other continent, not from the Mist Continent. It looks like it was sick, too. Quina, you alright?" Drake also turned his attention to the Qu, who was looking around the area.

"I fine. Creature not poison." Drake tilted his head to the side, but shrugged, and looked around as well. They'd entered a rather well lit area with well-build stone staircases leading up to where the miners in this section likely slept, and then past that, in the direction they had to travel.

"Good. Alright, we'll stay with this set of miners for the night. Once we're all up, we'll set out again." Drake nodded, and stretched. Dagger had moved to talk to the miners that were starting to emerge.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Much to Drake's relief, several of the miners didn't have the annoying accent that he couldn't understand. He spent most of the time he was awake chatting with them, and found out that he had stayed with them several years ago, but hadn't talked to them much. He apparently sounded the same, though.

The bunks were much the same as in the camp they'd been in before, which Drake found out when he excused himself early on account of his growing headache. He slept easily, and had no memorable dreams, much to his relief in the morning.

Zidane found him while he was stretching, and the archer smiled at him a little before getting up. He finally felt limber and ready to go, though his stomach was growling softly. Quina was up, but wasn't done cooking breakfast yet in the miners' kitchen.

"You're up early. You feeling alright?" The brunette nodded, and rolled his shoulders before pulling his armor back on. It was odd how quickly he'd gotten to having it on. He didn't feel fully dressed until he had it on. Though perhaps going through a war and being a wanted fugitive had that effect.

"Slept well. Don't even have a headache." The archer tapped the side of his head with a smile. "Starting to think it was some weird cold or something." Zidane chuckled a bit, and sat to start stretching as well.

"That's great. Maybe we'll be able to take a gargant and get to the exit faster. Even I'm starting to feel the need to see the sky." Drake chuckled a little and fiddled with his pauldron a bit. "Where'd you get that armor, anyhow? It looks custom made for an archer."

"Hahaha. I got it from the last Chosen of Lindblum. His wife made it for him when he was younger, and he gave it to me. He was a bit broader in the chest and arm than I am, though." Zidane laughed a bit as Drake finally got his pauldron to sit correctly on him.

"I'm not surprised. There were a few women who asked if you were eating enough, when we first brought you into the troupe. I had to explain to a few that you ate as much as the rest of us, but you just didn't show it." Drake grinned. He really did have a stupidly skinny frame, and never seemed to put on weight.

"I'm surprised Quina hasn't tried to force-feed me, seeing as I've only eaten trail rations around him/her." That made Zidane laugh more as he stretched, the sound carrying into the bunk area. It apparently woke the others, because Vivi and Dagger soon joined them, both looking sleepy.

"What're you two laughing about?" Drake grinned at the sleepy princess, his thumbs tucked into his belt. Vivi looked like he was about to fall asleep where he stood.

"Oh, just something back from when I first joined the Tantalus Troupe. I was this skinny back then, just no one knew that it was natural." The archer spread his arms to the side, showing off just how thin he really was. He didn't mind it, though, because he really did have muscles. They just weren't as bulging as, say, a smith's.

"Oh! I...I was wondering about that, actually." Drake and Zidane laughed as the princess blushed, and Vivi jerked up like he'd actually been asleep. "I mean, I've seen Zidane have to remind you to eat once or twice..." Drake smiled wryly.

"Sometimes I get so distracted by all the events going on that I don't feel like eating much. Lindblum getting attacked is one of the more worrying events weighing on my mind." Dagger nodded, her eyes sliding downwards. She already knew what it was like to have the worries of many people on her shoulders, for all that she didn't have as much an influence on Alexandria as her mother.

"Food ready!" They all were distracted by Quina's yell, and Drake in particular trotted towards the kitchen. He had an appetite again, after his headache distracting him from his hunger.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake waved to the miners as they left the stairs, a small smile on his face. The ones that saw him waved back, and then the archer had to trot to catch up to his companions. Zidane was already pulling on a switch, lifting it up until there was a sound like metal catching on metal. Yellow flowers were handed out amongst the group, and Drake smiled a bit as he closed his eyes to listen.

Pretty soon, there was an unmistakable racket, and he looked to the left. The rest were looking towards him, since he'd demonstrated that he could hear the gargants coming when they couldn't. Even Drake didn't understand why he could hear them clearly.

"There's several on the way. I can't tell exactly how many." Zidane blinked at Drake, and then looked left as well. After a bit, the first Gargant came into view. Zidane held his flower up and hopped on, and glanced around before scooping Vivi up and helping him to get on the next gargant while it ate the flower he offered it. There was a bit of a break before the next one, so the archer looked to the princess.

"You go next, Drake. I'll be fine getting on by myself." The archer nodded and held up his flower to attract the attention of the gargant. As soon as it leaned down to take it, he grabbed hold of its horn and swung his legs up to hook into the carapace. He shook his head a little as the gargant started off, craning to see Dagger holding a flower up to get another gargant's attention.

The trip was fairly quiet, though he could hear Quina complaining behind him. Apparently the Qu wasn't fond of using the giant bugs to get from one place to another. The others were all fairly quiet.

The trip was long enough that Drake felt like his hands were getting stuck in place. Soon enough, though, he spotted Zidane and Vivi waving to him. He winced as he unhooked his legs from the gargant, and waited until he was nearer to his friends before dropping off. Like before, his legs gave out under him, though he landed in a puddle this time.

Zidane laughed a bit, and moved to help the archer up, pulling him out of the way so that Dagger could land as well. The princess landed heavily, but more gracefully than Drake had. Quina, just a few minutes later, landed smack dab in the middle of the same puddle Drake had, splashing the water everywhere.

"Anyone else stiff as a board from that?" Drake rotated his shoulders and cracked his neck, brushing off the last bit of dampness from when he'd landed in the puddle. He couldn't tell if his armor was damaged by the wet, but so long as it still protected him, it didn't really matter.

"That was a long leg. We must be most of the way there by now." Zidane looked around, and Drake did the same thing. The tunnel was showed much less adaptation from man, with only a few torches here and there. There were no timbers holding up the ceiling, though water dripped from short stalactites ringing the hole that the gargant's root went up.

"Not as many signs of people. The construction must have started on the Mist Continent side." Dagger blinked at the archer as he walked over to a torch and touched the iron holding it off the floor. "This was lit recently, though, so there's someone around. ...And whoever forged these torch holders knew what he was doing. They're old, but still sturdy." Drake dropped his hand and looked to the others with a smile. "And they're nothing like I've seen on the Mist Continent. These came from the other side."

Zidane grinned at that news, and led the way down the tunnel. Drake blinked as he saw light in the distance, and squinted before speeding up a bit, overtaking Zidane. He stopped as he saw where the light was coming from, and looked up with a grin on his face.

"Well, that explains the light. Look!" Dagger gasped in amazement as she saw the blue sky so far overhead.

"We're so far underground! How can these plants live down here?" Drake walked over to the plant, reaching out to rub his fingers over a leaf. The plants were all over the wall, from the water just a few yards below them to high, high above. They didn't reach all the way to the entrance, though.

"There's plenty of water, the sunlight above, and there must be enough food for them in the wall. They don't go all the way up, though...It may be a desert up there. In that case, we should refill our canteens. Who knows when we'll find more water." Zidane blinked at Drake, and then nodded.

"Right. I'll go down and test the water. Hand me all the empty canteens." Drake dug in his pouch for his, and swished it around. It was mostly empty, seeing as he hadn't accepted any ale from the miners. "Probably should have everyone drink some first, though." Drake grinned and drained the last of his canteen before tossing it to Zidane. Dagger and Vivi had already handed him their own. Quina didn't have one, but Drake was carrying a spare that was still full. "Right. Be right back."

Drake sat on the ledge as he watched Zidane climb out on the ivy wall and blinked as he spotted something above him on the wall. He opened his mouth to warn his friend, only to cringe as he was too late. A jet of water sent Zidane flying down into the water below. Dagger rushed to Drake's side, but no farther, her hands over her mouth and she looked down into the water in worry.

Zidane bobbed up to the surface with the canteens still slung over his shoulder, coughing and shaking his head. Drake looked around and spotted an area where he could climb down, and scrambled down the fairly easy-to-climb rock wall. Zidane looked startled when Drake helped him get out of the water.

"Ho man...I was not expecting that." Drake glanced up to Dagger, and blinked as he saw Quina looking over the ledge that Drake had climbed down. Vivi was next to Dagger, his yellow eyes blinking at the two of them. "How'd you get down?" Drake gestured towards the rock face he'd climbed down.

"Climbed. You alright?" Zidane nodded, and hit himself in the side of the head, shaking water out of his ear. Drake smiled a bit and looked around, trying to figure out how to get Dagger and the others down to them. "Quina, do you think you could reach that ledge there?" Drake pointed to a ledge that he could see would lead to other ledges, each one leading down to them. The Qu turned to look where Drake was pointing, and nodded its entire body before jumping to it. "Great. Dagger, Vivi, follow him, if you can. If not, I'll come back up and help you down." The two nodded, and Drake watched warily as Vivi jumped the gap to the ledge Quina now stood on.

When Drake looked back to Zidane, he blinked and looked around, feeling his almost-long-enough-to-put-in-a-tail hair whip around his ears. The canteens were lying on the ground where his brother had been, but the monkey-tailed thief was nowhere to be seen. A clattering sound made Drake look up, and he sighed as he spotted his brother climbing the ivy wall again.

Much to everyone's relief, he didn't fall again, so Drake went back to pointing out the next ledge for the other three. Once they were down, the archer grabbed the canteens and knelt next to the water to fill them. Zidane was back by the time all the canteens were full.

"There was a sign up there. The way out's by gargant. We'll rest for the night, and then head out in the morning." A glance up showed that it was, indeed, starting to get close to night.

Dagger helped to pitch the tent, and Drake did his best to find what they needed for a fire. Zidane was sorting out the rations and seeing what they had. Staying with the miners and eating some of their food had helped their rations stretch, but they were going to have to hunt sooner or later, especially with Quina's added stomach.

Drake came back with some partially-used torches, and arranged them within a ring of stones he'd also found before digging his flint and tinder out of his pouch. Vivi stopped him and cast a small fire spell, and the archer laughed before putting his fire-starting tools away again. Quina did what s/he could with what they had, adding a few herbs that s/he had stowed away in a pocket somewhere to the strange stew s/he had made.

Drake stretched as the stew cooked, and started to show Vivi a few things he was starting to pick up from his own movements while unarmed, so that he at least would stop falling on his face as much. Drake's tips seemed to help quite a bit, as the boy was moving around without any trouble after a little while. Zidane and Dagger watched for a while.

When the food was done, Drake tucked in, hesitantly at first, and then with a will when he found that the stew actually tasted good. Quina was full of complaints about what s/he had to work with to make the dinner, but the rest were full of nothing but compliments.

Zidane played his flute a bit after they were done eating, and Drake ended up laying on his back not far from the water as he stared up at the stars. Dagger and Vivi stayed by the fire, and Quina had already retired to the tent.

Despite his limited vision of the sky, Drake found himself reciting the constellations he knew, though he couldn't see any of them in the sky above. Some of the constellations he recited were from Earth, and some were from Gaia that he'd learned from Locke. After a while, he fell asleep where he lay, feeling the calmest he had since for a long, long time.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

**End Note: **Hopefully the next chapter doesn't take three months to get out. I really am sorry about how long the gap was. ~glances at clock, does a few minute formatting fixes, and dashes out the door to head to work~ (Yes, I really am this busy, unfortunately.)


	12. Caledonia

**Authoress' Notes: **Okay, so I did a double-update, and not one review. I know my story's gotten popular. If it's bad, or you don't like it, or if you love it or like it, please, let me know!

**Warning: **Heavy OC content upcoming. Includes heavy references to non-christian religions. If that bothers you, too bad.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfics.

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Chapter 12: Caledonia

Drake grunted as he landed, glad that the last Gargant ride wasn't as long as he'd thought it'd be, though it was mostly straight up. He had managed to keep his feet under him, thankfully, and stepped out of the way as Dagger landed as well. She stumbled, and Zidane reached out to steady her. Drake's eyes widened as he saw Vivi starting to slip from his gargant, and caught the boy before he fell all the way back down, his callused hands tangling in his oversized coat. He sighed as he felt a couple of hands on his belt, ensuring that the rescuer wouldn't fall as well.

"That was close." Drake felt Zidane and Dagger tug on his belt, and backed up with them, bringing Vivi up with him. The archer could see Quina starting to make his/her way up, but it would be a while before s/he reached them.

"You alright Vivi?" Drake sat once the little black mage was safe on the ledge with them, and closed his eyes with a sigh of relief. He blinked as he felt the young mage cling to him, and chuckled a bit before gently patting his hat.

"I think we're all a bit shaken by that. I'm surprised that it didn't happen on some of the longer legs." Zidane chuckled a little, and stood from where he was crouching next to Drake.

"No kidding. I'm glad you reacted so quickly. You're an important part of this group, Vivi." The boy blinked at Zidane for his comment, and Drake stood, making sure that Vivi wouldn't fall over from how much he was shaking. "You too, Drake." The archer smiled lopsidedly, and checked his pouch to make sure it was still there, and still closed. His sash was tied around his hips, the knot just above the pouch to make sure that it was protected.

"Hey, we're the ones that can hit what you can't. 'Course we're important." Zidane laughed at Drake's matter-of-fact tone, and looked at the tunnel that ran to their left.

"Yeah, I guess so. You should get your bow out. I think the exit is right there." Drake blinked at the light, and tilted his head to the side before doing as Zidane suggested and pulling his unstrung bow out with its thin quiver.

The quivers full of arrows were next to come out, and attached to the back of his belt. By the time Quina reached them, he had a smile on his face, feeling fully dressed again, finally. His bow was still unstrung, but he figured he'd have time to string his bow before whatever had decided to attack them was within range. If he remembered right, they would exit into a desert area.

Quina landed with his/her usual lack of grace, but the others helped him/her to get up and recover, and then they all made sure that they hadn't lost anything. Drake sighed as they all agreed they had everything, and then led the way out, almost trotting in his eagerness to be in the open again.

The archer closed his eyes as he felt the stiff breeze hitting him, and relaxed before opening his eyes and squinting as he allowed them to adjust to the light. As he had thought, they were in a very brown area. Zidane was out next, and held his hand over his eyes as he looked around, his jaw dropping a little.

"There's no Mist here...This is definitely not the Mist Continent." Drake ran his hands over his eyes and shook his head a bit to clear his head a little from the sudden feeling of nostalgia.

To their left, the land dropped away into the sea, and to their right, the mountains rose out of the hills. The land itself wasn't exactly sand, but the grass was mostly dead, giving the effect of death. A glance towards the sky, and Drake had his bearings.

"So which way? Towards the mountains?" Drake pointed to the southeast, where there was a rather brown forest and a valley between a plateau and a mountain.

"Only way we can. If we can get up on top of that plateau, and there should be a way up, we'll get a better view. Maybe spot some settlements." Zidane nodded to Drake, and they set off.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Anastasia paced in her room in her preferred place of residence, far from the annoying bustle and interruptions of Treno, a book in her hands. Her eyes nor her thoughts were on the words, though. Her thoughts were on the young man that had previously owned the piece of fabric that lay in between the pages of the book she was holding. With a sigh, she plucked the green fabric from the pages of the book and closed the object with a single movement of her hand. The brunette tossed the book to the desk in the corner of her room, and tied the scrap of fabric around her loose hair to make a tail before turning to pay attention to the Black Mage that had just hesitantly entered her room.

"Well? What is it you want." The brunette had certainly inherited the 'holier-than-thou' attitude that Kuja so often seemed to have when dealing with other mages. The mage shuffled a little, and held out a gloved hand, holding a piece of paper. Kuja had instructed the mages that worked in the palace to remain silent at all times. Thus, any messages for the two that lived in the remote palace were delivered through notes, not that Anastasia truly minded. She had spent most of her life in the palace, and knew the passageways there better than the passageways in the mansion in Treno, despite that there was a vast size difference.

"Hm...Guests claiming to be of the Figaro family, eh? Very well. Bring them to the parlor, I will be down to speak with them shortly." Anastasia waved a dismissive hand to the Black Mage. She strode into her dressing room and opened her wardrobe, snatching out a red sheathe dress to change into. Afterwards, she tied the green ribbon to her upper arm and quickly brushed out her hair, not caring at all that the bottom of her dress was very high. After that, a sheer shawl was tugged from where it hung over the door of the wardrobe, and she settled it on her arms as she strode purposefully off, her feet covered in tall black boots that were reminiscent of her travel gear.

"I trust you have been treated fairly?" The two men in the room turned at her voice, and one dropped his eyes from her face almost immediately, while the other gaped at her. "I apologize if the servants have treated you rudely; these mages don't have the sense that humans do." The brunette waved a hand dismissively, and the mage at the door bowed before leaving.

"And you are...?" Anastasia smiled vaguely at the question, well aware that the man that had asked her the question was already entranced by her appearance, as well as the odd attraction that many men felt towards her.

"Anastasia Cassul Kings." She curtsied slightly, holding her arms out to the side as she didn't have much of a skirt to spread. "The adoptive daughter of the master of this palace." Both men frowned at this, and she flapped a hand. "Current master. I've little interest in the history of this place, though I well know that the Figaro family claimed this land as theirs in the past."

"Within the last generation, actually. The man that you call 'father' stole this castle, as well as the kingdom of Figaro, from _our_ father. Whom has since passed on, sadly." Anastasia simply shrugged to this information, earning incredulous looks from the two men.

"Tis the fate of small kingdoms to be set adrift on the tides of destiny. They change hands, are crushed, or absorbed into another, glorious power." The bulkier of the two men tensed, but the thinner one set a hand on his shoulder. So, it seemed as though the one who had appeared to think only with his lower brain did indeed use the head on his shoulders. "Ah, alas, but it seems my guests are quite rude." The sighing statement made both the men tense. They couldn't tell if she was saying this simply because she wanted to get their attention back on her, or if it was because she was about to cast spells on them. "They have entered my home and taken refuge from the desert heat, and yet I know not their names." She allowed a slightly flirtatious smirk to cross her face as she looked pointedly at the older, thinner man. The one that had immediately showed an interest in her for more than her magic or her mind.

The man smiled thinly, recognizing the careful, cautious dance of politics for what it was. Simply because the brunette preferred the simpler, less hectic life of the desert palace didn't mean that she wasn't perfectly suited to life in Treno as well. The younger man looked fairly confused, looking to be far better suited to life in the midst of battle than wandering about with a pretty woman on his arm.

"I am Edgar Roni Figaro, Milady, and this is my younger brother, Sabin Rene Figaro." Anastasia tilted her head to the side, a vague look of remembrance on her face as she realized that the names rang a very faint bell in the back of her head. "Unlike our famous ancestors, we are not twins." The young man, the would-be king, bowed slightly, though his eyes never left Anastasia's face. She merely smiled at this, knowing that it was because he saw in her a powerful enemy.

She was giddy at this, truly. Never before had she been considered an enemy because of her own abilities. More often than not, she was considered with wariness because of whom she served. This man had never met Lord Kuja face to face, and yet, here he was, being careful with how he addressed her, without seeing her magic or her swordplay.

"Ah, that is where I have heard those names. I was wondering." Anastasia smiled and tapped a slender, tanned finger against her cheek, likely looking as she did when she had fooled Drake into falling for her. She never had gotten his last name...had she? Ah, yes she had. Kyle was his last name. Odd that a man's first name be used as another's last name, but she'd heard stranger.

"May I be so bold as to ask if you have a favored suitor, milady Anastasia?" The brunette blinked as the man asked the question she hadn't been expecting, but, as she had been trained, her 'mask' never slipped. It wasn't the first time she had been asked such a question, but he certainly was the first to have asked it so quickly after meeting her. "I apologize if I seem to be too forward, but never have I met a woman with such an air of mystery about her. I believe I am quite smitten."

Oh, this man certainly knew how to charm his way into a woman's affections. She wasn't a shy maiden, though, oh no. Her virtue was yet protected, but she was no stranger to what happened between a man and a woman in a bedroom. And she had heard enough stories from noblewomen to know that maidens, no matter how much their virtue was touted in public, were often tumbled at least three times before they were married off, and almost always by a favored suitor. He wasn't interested in the end product, though, merely in manipulating her to get his ancestral home back.

"I do, as a matter of fact." The surprised look on the men's faces told her that they hadn't thought she did. Well, she didn't really, as Drake likely wouldn't consider himself her suitor anymore, but she still favored him. "Though...He is far from here." A slightly flirtatious smile was flashed to the men, but the smile never reached her eyes.

"I would not dare to infringe on a woman who has been claimed by another." The elder of the two bowed a little, the wary look returning to his face. Anastasia pouted cutely, but kept a slight smile present. "Sabin, perhaps we should be heading to the ruins?" Anastasia tilted her head to the side for a moment, her mask fading for a moment as she eyed the two men, wondering what they were up to.

"Mm? Ah, yes! We should, we should!" Anastasia allowed her mask to slip as she considered what they were referring to. She knew of several sets of ruins on this continent, from the ruins of Madain Sari to the ruins of the ancient town of South Figaro. But which ruins were they referring to?

"We shall take our leave then, milady Anastasia." The elder of the two bowed to the beautiful brunette, who snapped out of her thoughts at the gesture.

"So soon?" She tilted her head to the side with a slight pout, which only set both men on edge. To them, she likely seemed like a predator ready to strike.

"I'm afraid so, milady. There is someone who waits for us." Anastasia raised an eyebrow at that, and shrugged before clapping her hands twice. The two men remained tense when a black mage entered the room.

"Show these two gentlemen to the surface so they may be on their way." The black mage bowed as Anastasia turned and swept out of the room the way she came, her mind awhirl with thoughts again.

She didn't even stop to make sure that the men had indeed left before striding into the library, startling the moogle that was their librarian into flight.

"M-milady! I was just cleaning up after the mess I made looking for those books you re-"

"Where are the books on the history of Figaro? I wish to read them." The moogle blinked before fluttering over to the catalog wall, and scanned for the correct box. Anastasia tapped a foot as she crossed her arms, reminding herself that this was something that wasn't instantaneous.

"Here are the titles that may hold the information you desire, milady. Merely tell me which you wish to peruse, and I will fetch them for you!" Anastasia accepted the stack of cards, and scanned through them, setting them down upside down to keep them in the order that the moogle handed them to her while still looking through them.

Once she had selected three titles that seemed likely to hold the information that she wanted, she gently shoved the stack of left-over cards to the side and handed him the smaller group of cards.

"These will do for now, but set the rest to the side. I may wish to investigate them later." The moogle nodded, and fluttered off amongst the shelves as Anastasia moved to the lone table in the room, which was set up exactly the way she liked it, as Kuja had his own study.

The young woman scanned through the first book that was delivered to her, not noticing when the moogle lit a candle to give her more light. She only reacted as she felt a hand pull her hair to the left side of her neck, and blinked up at the silver-haired man that was standing behind her.

"Find something to occupy yourself, my knight?" He reached over her right shoulder to lift a book so he could read the title. "'On the Second War of the Magi and the Growth of the Empire of Figaro'? What brought this on?" Anastasia smiled a little sheepishly.

"The two remaining members of the Figaro royal family visited whilst you were out. I entertained them for the short time that they were here." She moved a bookmark to mark which page she had been reading, still looking up at the man that was running his fingers through her long hair.

"And your thoughts on them?" He smiled slightly down at her, his eyes retaining their predatory gleam while the girl's eyes had softened slightly in adoration.

"The elder of the two showed an interest in me, though I believe he desired the relationship only for the chance to regain his ancestral home. The younger is more naiive than his brother, but would not be as easy for me to manipulate." Kuja nodded and leaned over a little to kiss the girl on the side of her neck, having moved away all of her hair. He smiled as he felt her shiver slightly, and patted her shoulder.

"Should they visit again, tempting the elder brother would not go amiss. Let him think that you have a genuine interest in him and that he can manipulate you to get at me. Best to wrap up all the loose ends at once." Anastasia nodded as she felt another pat on her shoulder, and watched as he sauntered out of the room.

"He doesn't hold the fascination in me that Drake does...He will be harder to manipulate that that boy." She gently closed the books and stacked them before picking the books up and calling the moogle to her.

The moogle blinked up at the woman as she caught the shawl that had been sliding off of her shoulders, resting the books on her hip. "You wanted something, milady?" Anastasia nodded slightly, draping the shawl over her free arm.

"Yes. Set these books to the side. They hold the information I wish to learn." The moogle huffed as he took the books, his wings flapping frantically just to stay in the air.

"Yes, milady. Have a nice rest!" Anastasia turned on the ball of her foot and strode out of the library, heading back to her room.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

The siblings paused once they were out of the palace, and Sabin arranged his cloak over his head with a scowl, growling a little to himself. Edgar shook his head, but did the same, and pulled out a compass before heading out. His brother followed after him.

Their forms likely looked like moving parts of the desert, from a distance, but all that meant was that they wouldn't be bothered by monsters. They didn't talk for hours, each calming down from the encounter in their own way.

The two of them came across a set of half-buried set of ruins in the sand, and wound around the sand-scraped ancient brick and stone buildings. Everything around them was shades of the exact same color, no matter what it had been before being baked in the sun for decades.

The two men filed into a building made from the remnants of a few ruins, and Sabin pushed his hood back with a sigh before trotting over to a well that had been protected and hauling on a much newer rope, bringing a bucket of water up from the depths. Edgar filled his canteen from it, and offered a bit to his brother, who slaked his thirst before sending the bucket back to the bottom of the well and hauling it up again.

Edgar filled his brother's canteen and then dumped the rest of the bucket over his own head, sighing with relief as sand and water trickled through his scalp.

"Told you we should have waited for the sun to go lower." Edgar shook his head at what Sabin said, and sat down on a rickety-looking stool, taking his cloak off to let the moisture evaporate off his back as well.

"Don't tell me your instincts weren't screaming at you around that woman, too. If she's the weaker of the two, I don't want to meet her father. I feel sorry for whoever her chosen suitor is." Sabin blinked at Edgar, and pulled a half-full bucket up so that he could wash the sand off of himself and cool off.

"Well, yeah, but...She was awfully pretty. And I thought you were into her?" Edgar shook his head, and stuck his fingers through his hair with a yawn, his whole body drooping with the heat.

"That was just political machinations. I told you that y're horrible at seein' that." Halfway through Edgar's sentence, his accent started to change, from a proper and prim nobleman's accent, to the accent of someone who grew up on the mountains around Conde Petie.

"Aye, but she was still pretty." Edgar sighed, and looked at his brother, only to close his eyes as half a bucket of water hit him in the face. The long-haired man sputtered even as his little brother laughed, and wiped the water from his face and glared at him. "Admit it, you feel better now." The elder of the two wiped his damp hair from his face, and pulled off his soaked shirt and cloak.

"You coulda warned me. I think somma tha' water wen' up m'nose." Sabin laughed a bit, and tugged what looked like a crude mattress out of a niche and shook it until about ten pounds of sand fell out of it. "Gonna nap?" Sabin set the straw mattress down on the ground and then laid down on it with a sigh.

"Yeah. Mayhap th' old 'uns could use some 'elp on th' battlefield." Edgar nodded, and watched as his little brother, who probably could lift him with ease, fell into the oddly still slumber that marked a Chosen's soul going to the battlefield where fighting had been going on for generations.

The elder of the two settled down on his stool, waiting for his brother to wake and the hottest part of the day to end.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake ran his hand over his forehead, wiping away the sweat. The only one that didn't seem to feel the heat was Quina. How, the archer didn't know. The rest of them were dipping into their canteens a fair amount. They had spotted what was likely Conde Petie a while back, and Zidane had insisted that they go there and see if they couldn't get any information. Drake was getting a bad feeling about it, though he couldn't quite explain why.

"Man, it's hot out...Drake, you alright?" The archer turned to look at Zidane, and nodded. The village of dwarves was in front of them, but farther than they'd be able to travel with what remained of the day. "Guess we should make camp for the night. Drake, you wanna take first watch?" The archer sighed a little and looked to the sky.

There were griffons flying above, but none of them seemed to have taken notice of them. Even Drake's eyes hadn't spotted anything roaming the dead plains. Finally, the archer turned to his brother and nodded.

They found a giant root and pitched camp next to it, so that whoever was on watch wouldn't have to worry about a back attack. Drake climbed up to the top of the root and perched there as the others set up the camp, his eyes constantly scanning and looking around. A few green things off in the distance made the archer blink and concentrate to see what it was, but he couldn't tell.

Quina started to cook a rendition of the hardtack and jerky stew that they'd had the night before, and Drake's stomach growled a little. He had to hope that the dwarves were as friendly as they'd been in the game, or they would have to rely on what Drake could hunt for them.

Drake waited for Zidane to climb up to relieve him before going down and taking his portion of the stew, and ate it quickly. More than likely, it was hunger that made the stew taste so good. Vivi and Dagger were asleep by the time the archer finished his meal and carefully washed out his bowl.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake watched the sky for a while before sliding into the tent and laying along the side to fall asleep. The chill of the wind and the humming it made through the area somehow soothed the archer into sleep, but not an entirely dreamless one.

The first thing that Drake noticed was music. A lively fiddle intertwined with a flute and guitar, with a pair of drums, though one was played by hand and the other's sound was sharp as if it was struck with a stick. The next was a low flickering light, as if seen through bushes and trees.

A couple of laughs from behind him, and Drake whirled around to look. A pair of young men with hair darkened by soot and skin marked with some odd blue paint in a way that made them almost seem to disappear into the darkness of the woods.

"Woah! Who-Wolfe!" Ah, so Drake was playing pig-a-back on Wolfe. "Gods above, below an' all 'round! Y'blend in better'n us!" Wolfe grinned widely, and stood from his crouch.

"Awoo." The more slender of the two chuckled, and rubbed his thumb over his nose. "Still odd how th'three uv us're th'only un's young 'nough t'play th'ancient warriors."

"Aye, but th'elders're stuck on th'age." Wolfe smiled lopsidedly, and crouched again, looking back to the bonfire. "We en't late?" Wolfe shook his head, and gestured for them to come closer.

"Th' elders en't e'en started th'ceremony yet. Where's th'ponies?" Wolfe turned to look at the buffer of the two, who gestured back the way they'd come with a hand marked with blue leaves. "Good." Wolfe leaned forwards a little as he saw a woman decked in vivid green and blue robes stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the bonfire. "An' there's m'ma. Ceremony should be startin' soon. Good thing, too. 'M hungry, an' that stew smells good." Wolfe's two companions nodded, and Drake felt as Wolfe settled into a strange crouch, with one bare foot flat on the ground, the other knee a couple of feet away from it, and both hands on the ground.

"Tch. Y'even move like y'r namebrothers. N'wonder we c'n ne'er hear ye huntin'." Wolfe chuckled lowly, and then a little louder as he saw someone moving around near their hiding place look around in alarm.

Finally, the elders, a frail-looking bunch dressed in too-loose robes and holding branches with leaves still on, with wreaths on their heads that looked like they were about to slip over their eyes, stepped into the firelight, and started to chant. All three of the young men tensed a little, listening carefully. In order to know when to enter, they had to crouch in the shadows and listen.

Wolfe's mother joined the chant, her voice calling high above the voices of the male elders, and under the shrill tones of the female elders. Not that anyone could tell which gender was which, just by looking at them. The robes ensured that the elderly all looked the same, though the garb of the rest of the villagers emphasized who was female, and who was male, as the women had belts under their busts and long bright robes, and the men were wearing only loincloths, showing off their muscles.

There was no male in the village that didn't have considerable muscles, aside from the elders, though a great many men had more hair than was likely considered attractive. The women had their faces painted to look strange and almost inhuman. The younger men, the ones that had the marks of hunters and warriors, were painted not unlike Wolfe and his two companions.

The men of the village started to chant, followed by the women, as the light of the bonfire started to flicker more. Wolfe moved from his crouch and gestured towards the other two before all three of them started to move silently away from the bonfire.

Three grazing ponies, really just small horses, soon came into view. Like their riders, they were painted up. Wolfe moved to one that snorted aggressively at him, but the limber man was up on the horse's bare back before it made any movement. The light brown horse had black stripes painted on its fur, but the paint was dry, as none came off onto Wolfe's hands. By the time Wolfe looked to the other two, they were on their own horses, each dark gray, one painted what looked like a blue in the moonlight, and the other painted a dark purple.

"How 'bout we give 'em th' start o' their lives?" The grins of the other two shone bright in the darkness, and Wolfe turned forwards again, his body automatically shifting as his horse shifted under him. His hands fisted in the horse's mane, and he nudged it with his bare heels.

The horse reared with a loud whinny, and Wolfe grinned widely, clinging to the horse's back like a burr. The other two horses mimicked the one Wolfe was on, minus the rearing, and the three were off, their hooves thundering in the silent forest.

A flash of fire to the right as the trio brushed close to the village, and then it was gone again, replaced by the thundering darkness of the forest. Wolfe hunkered over the neck of his horse, his wide grin hidden by the darkness and the long mane of his steed.

Another flash of fire, this time to the left, marked another bonfire, and another village. Wolfe sat up a little and threw his head back with a sound not reminiscent of his name-brothers, and a set of male voices answered before more hooves joined the trio.

Drake, watching from behind Wolfe's eyes, was more than a little surprised, though he couldn't deny that the adrenaline rush he could feel through Wolfe wasn't fun. The sensation of horseflesh moving under him, and the chill of the night air over his mostly-bared skin...It was entirely foreign to him, and yet familiar at the same time, as if this were one of _his_ memories.

Three more flashes of fire, three more calls answered by yet more voices and hooves, and the sound was positively thunderous. Wolfe remained in the lead, the dark forest flashing in front of him. He leaned to the left side of his horse, and, despite its rebellious actions earlier, it obeyed, turning to the left.

Wolfe began to chant, though his words were snatched away by the wind. The thundering mob of horses and riders burst out of the edge of the forest, racing along an almost-too-narrow pass along the side of the cliff. Wolfe's heartbeat started to race even more, though his grin increased even more.

An eerie howl rose from the mass of riders as they passed by what Drake swore was Conde Petie, which was all lit up with torches. Wolfe added in a howl, which drew another from the mountainside above them. Wolfe's howl had attracted the attention of his name-brothers, which drew a shriek of what must have been terror that could be heard all the way from Conde Petie.

Wolfe laughed into his horse's mane as he leaned to the left, leading the steed around the pass and through a narrow gap between stones wide enough for a single horse to run through, but not two. The horse slowed as it entered the large, circular canyon, moving out of the way for the other horses to enter. Wolfe's chest was heaving as he looked over the group he'd just led there, his cheeks starting to hurt from how much he was grinning.

"Hoy! Well met!" Wolfe turned to look at a young man on a light gray horse, who had a matching grin. "Was't you as th'wolves answered?" Wolfe shifted on his horse, sitting on it backwards as he rested a foot on its flank and an elbow on his knee.

"Aye. M'namebrothers're always keen on lettin' me know't." The man's painted eyebrows rose, creasing the crescent moon painted on his forehead.

"Ye're the son uv th'priestess? 'Splains why ye're th'leader, so." Wolfe shrugged and looked over the group, doing a quick headcount of the humans.

"Se'nty-five young men'n this'un. Hoo, 's larger'n m'da's first lead!" A familiar buff body on a dark gray horse with blue paint moved near, and held out a clenched fist. Wolfe reached out one of his own and rapped his knuckles gently on the proffered fist.

"'S th'best ride I been on. None o't'others dared go s'fast. None lost, neither. Hunter smiles on's this night." Wolfe nodded, and looked up at the sky.

Drake was astonished to see that there was a lone moon in the sky, shining down on them. It didn't seem to be unusual for Wolfe, though, as he turned away from it as more young men walked over to speak to him. Many of them apparently still were on adrenaline rushes, judging by their wide eyes and wider smiles.

After a while, Wolfe pressed his fingers to his lips and let loose a loud, shrill whistle. All seventy-five young men turned to look at him, and he raised his hand in the air before swinging it in a circle, the widely-accepted sign for returning to their respective villages. He arranged himself on his horse to ride, and nudged it gently. Like before, his horse reared and bellowed a challenge to the others before racing back out of the circular canyon.

Wolfe grinned again as he led the thunderous stream of bodies along that narrow cliff, and at that shriek of pure terror that came from Conde Petie. Just to bother the dwarves more, the young men started to whoop and shriek battlecries, ensuring that the dwarves would stay holed up in their town suspended over the canyon. As opposed to the trip out, where they were all silent aside from the occasional whoop of excitement and the howl they all let out when they passed the dwarves' city, the men made a complete racket as they rode, whooping and shrieking to let everyone, including the monsters, know where they were.

The pace slowed a little as they neared the fires, and Wolfe crowed with success as the mob of riders entered a clearing lined with fires. Well over a hundred people were in the clearing, dancing in rings and chanting and in general enjoying themselves. Wolfe led his group around the edge of the clearing, all of them whooping and yelling and making noise.

"Ho whit noise be this, t'ring 'round oor fire?  
Tae howl an' cry loike t'chillun o'th' mire?" Wolfe laughed loudly, still leading his group around the clearing, recognizing the next part of the ceremony.

"We be the ones long dead, aboot the land once more!  
T'search mount an' plain for evil's taint, t'settle 'n olden score!  
Be ye maid or be ye man, hold ye true t' kin an' clan!  
Lest 'pon wander'r's path y'stumble on,  
an' ye be lost t'kin an' son!" The next part of the chant was picked up by the next man in the stream of horses and humans, and Wolfe leaned off his horse to snatch up a roll of bread as he passed a table with a whole tower of them set up. A startled shriek came from a young woman that had been standing there, and he turned to grin back at her.

The rest of the chant ended, and Wolfe led his horse through the gap that opened up, dismounting before approaching his mother and the huge polished bronze slab that stood upright. As the young man approached it, his image slowly emerged from the bronze. The young man looked astonishingly feral, with his hair intertwined with sticks and what looked like carved antlers. His skin was painted in an intricate pattern of dark brown and dark gray, leaving him looking like part of the forest itself, able to blend in without even trying. His body was admittedly a good deal more slender than the rest, but he was dressed in simply a loincloth, just like the rest of the men. At the same time, though, he stood out from the rest, with his blue-gray eyes taking on the light of the fires all around him and subtle muscles giving him a lithe, dangerous appearance.

"Child o' th'Horned Lord,  
Warrior of axe and sword.  
What brings ye hither,  
Oot o'th' ether,  
T'whisk 'way oor sons,  
As till our fields an' land?  
Be it war away, or a raid ye plan,  
We need oor sons lest oor foes turn grand." Wolfe lifted his head, as if imitating a stag as it tossed its head.

"Tis a brother I seek,  
To aid what I wreak,  
'Gainst the ones who forget  
'Twas the land as beget  
What they take as is given  
Instead from the land is riven.  
Fear shall enter in their eyes,  
Those who look to the skies,  
When they see and hear my pack  
They will know what they lack  
In what it is they look to  
When it is death they woo  
When sleep they find,  
They find naught will mind."

The woman that Drake had figured out was Wolfe's mother smiled slightly at him, pacing around the solid bronze slab, disappearing behind it for a moment. She held a short staff when she reappeared, carved with three moons, one whole and two half on either side of it. Drake didn't get a very good look at it, but it seemed to be quite well made. Wolfe seemed to be paying much more attention to the bronze mirror, swaying slightly with the drums.

"Ye be blinded by hate, Horned Child,  
Keen on all tha's dark an' wild  
Ye hold fast t' danger, blood, an' tears  
An' know naught o' mortal fears.  
Be ye away, an' leave us be,  
We who're bound tae land an' sea.  
Be ye away intae th'sky,  
Firmly 'neath yer father's eye.  
Save yer quarrel wi' the heathen horde  
For when ye're well an' truly lord."

Wolfe stepped backwards, away from the mirror, and whistled sharply. His horse moved to his side, and the lithe man turned and vaulted onto the light brown stallion, his hands fisted in the horse's mane as it reared a third time before charging out of the gap that had once again been made in the circle.

Drake once again could feel the thrill of the ride, with the cold wind tugging at his hair and the carved horns that were tied to his head with twine. The horse bolted into the woods for a fair while, until he came upon another fire, this one surrounded by horses and young men. A cheer went up as his stallion slowed to a trot, and the young man dropped to the forest floor, the only sound from it being a twig snapping underfoot.

Wolfe reached behind his head and undid a knot that must have been digging into his scalp for the way he scratched at the spot as he pulled off the carved horns. The horns were tossed onto the fire, and another cheer let up. Drake realized that it must have been symbolic, seeing as the young man was suddenly offered a skin of what smelled strongly of alchohol.

The slender man whooped with surprise as he was hoisted into the air on the shoulders of some of the other young men, and he laughed shortly as a hand on the middle of his back kept him from falling backwards. A call from behind made the mass of young men turn, and Wolfe nearly fell over again, spilling a bit of liquid from the skin he'd yet to sample.

Several young women were threading through the trees, bright clothing catching the fire beyond the shadows cast by the mass of young men, each bearing more skins of drink and large baskets of food. Wolfe was let down onto the ground, and he greeted the young women with a hearty cheer and snatched a roll from the top of the nearest basket before ducking a swipe from another member of the mob of men before he jumped and wove his way through the crowd to the far side of the fire, snatching up a flute as he swiftly chewed his bread.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake panted as he rested his elbows on his knees, his eyes flicking from spot to spot as he tried to calm himself down. The others were still asleep, thankfully, though Zidane was supposed to be on guard duty, unless the archer misremembered. Steiner would have scolded the young man incessantly for the failing in duty.

Remembering the knight made the archer smile a little, and he closed his eyes, forcing himself to breath slower, and calm down faster. He wasn't even rightfully sure why he'd woken up with adrenaline running through his veins. He couldn't remember the second dream he'd had, though he knew he'd been in a forest of some sort, just different from the one in the first dream. That first dream had been very vivid, though. He'd never had a dream quite so vivid before, even when he'd been dreaming of Wolfe.

A sound made the archer stand from his spot outside of the tent, silently pulling his bow out of its holder on his back and stringing it as he listened carefully. While the moon did give him some light, there wasn't enough for him to trust his eyes. The snorting noise continued, and Drake pulled an arrow from his quiver, stalking smoothly away from the tent a bit to keep his friends from getting targeted if whatever was around wanted to charge him.

Drake started to use his eyes now, looking for the vague shape of whatever he'd heard, breathing softly as he nocked the arrow on his strung bow. As his eyes adjusted for the darkness even more, he sucked his breath slightly. The dim silhouette was huge, and he swore that he'd seen the shape before, somewhere.

His breath froze in his throat as he finally identified it. The zaghnol was at least twice the size of the ones that he'd seen in Pinnacle Rocks. Whether it was a genuine difference in breed, or just that this one was just that old, he couldn't tell. The creature was using its tusks to dig around where Zidane had been earlier, though Drake was all but sure that his brother was in the tent or wandering around in the darkness.

The archer paced sideways, moving slowly enough that the beast hopefully didn't see him. The zaghnols of the Mist continent had very poor eyesight but good hearing. They were creatures of the day, however, and Drake didn't doubt that they were the same here. His feet barely made any noise as he turned until he could see the creature's head a fair bit better in the moonlight. He was far too close to the beast for him to shoot if it heard the creaking of his bow as he drew it back, so he backed up, well away from the tent now.

His bow did indeed creak slightly as he drew the arrow back, but the creature didn't hear it. Drake closed his eyes and sent a brief prayer to Lady Maria before opening his eyes and aiming as best he could in the dark. His arrow flew true, and the beast fell with a thud, but no other sound. A sigh of relief came from Drake as he padded to the beast, his bow in his hand.

A sound from the tent made him tense, and he looked towards it only to smirk as he saw the pale gleam that could only be Zidane's head. He could hear Quina snoring slightly even from here. Vivi likely could sleep through someone's explosion if he was tired enough, like from walking all day, and Dagger's hair was too dark for that particular gleam in the moonlight.

Zidane's head turned as he looked around, and Drake whistled softly, imitating a bird from the Mist Continent. The sound wasn't missed on the thief, and his head snapped towards his friend, who was padding towards him quietly. The monkey-tailed man slipped out of the tent and straightened up a bit. Drake sighed a little.

"Thought you were on guard duty." Drake's friend stiffened a little, and then drooped. The archer unstrung his bow and put it away shaking his head. "Good thing I woke up, then. Zaghnol was rooting around too close to the camp. We'll have to keep an eye out, make sure no scavangers think we're tasty treats." Zidane nodded, and then plopped down on the ground outside of the tent.

"Sorry I forgot I was supposed to be guarding. Been a long day." Drake nodded and stretched a bit. "Why were you up?" That made the archer pause for a moment. His bare hand slid through his hair to the scars marring his scalp.

"I...had a pretty bizarre dream. A couple of them, I'm sure, but I can't remember the one that I had just before I woke. Whatever that one was, it was enough to make me shake. I spent a couple of minutes just calming down." Zidane frowned, looking a bit worried.

"You alright? Want me to wake Dagger up?" The archer shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the lump that was the dead zaghnol. "Ah, right, not much that she'd be able to do after you've already calmed down. How's your head?"

"Just a little sore, but I think that's just from trying to see in the dark." Zidane snorted a little at Drake, the mood lightening greatly, which was what the archer had been aiming for. He didn't want to worry his friend so much over a dream that, while being oddly vivid, was still just a dream.

"You were trying to see in the dark? Lemme guess, cause of that zaghnol?" The archer nodded, and the thief cursed slightly. "My night sight sucks. I can barely make you out." Drake tilted his head to the side, and glanced up towards the moons.

"Really? The twin moons are shedding enough light for me to make out a fair enough amount, though the larger of the two is darkened a good bit. Is my night sight really that much better than yours?" Zidane nodded, and Drake pulled his bow out of its quiver to sit cross-legged on the ground in front of the tent. "How strange. I thought for sure you'd have better night vision than me, being a thief and all." Zidane scoffed slightly, though he sat as well.

"I may be a thief, but unless I have a match or something, I can't see my hand in front of my face." Drake snorted, and set his hands on the middle point of his bow, which was set lengthwise across his lap. "What's thi-oh. Your bow. How long is this thing, anyhow? I never bothered to ask." Drake smiled a little as he ran his fingers over the wood, chuckling as he remembered when he'd actually asked Andreas what his bow was actually made out of.

"It's about five an' a half feet tall, made with zaghnol horn, ash wood, and reed fibers. It's hard for me to string, really, but it gets easier each and every time. Easily five times better'n the bow I had when the Prima Vista crashed into the Evil Forest. Only things keeping me back now're my arrows. Sad t'say, the quality of those isn't near up t'par with my bow." Zidane snorted a little, and tilted his head back to look at the moons, likely the only things he could see in the sky.

"Weapons like yours're so hard to keep in working order...Gotta have the bow in good condition, gotta have lots of arrows to shoot, and not lose them like I know you've had happen before..." Drake felt his face flush. Yes, when he'd started to learn archery, he'd taken a tumble and had his arrows all scatter on the pavement. Right in front of the troupe.

"Ugh. I'd hoped that maybe that blunder would've been forgotten. Jeez, how embarrassing that it happened to someone who became Chosen..." Zidane covered his mouth to keep from laughing too hard and waking someone that was sleeping. Drake could feel his heart lighten at the gesture. It was good, being easy with his brother, even though they were on a continent that neither of them knew, hoping to stay away from the mother of the woman sleeping in the tent behind them.

"You are _never_ living that one down. Once you're married with kids, I'll be telling them about that. No matter whether you're a decorated member of whichever country you end up in. Even if you somehow get noble status, I'll be tellin' them that." Drake scoffed at the idea of getting status as a noble. While it wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility, it was still rather silly to him.

"I'll probably be tellin' yours about that time you had about five of your lady-friends meet up at once." Zidane cringed and glanced back at the tent before standing up and stretching.

"I'll patrol around a bit. Hopefully that corpse doesn't attract anything. Or start to stink." Drake nodded, and slipped into the tent to try to get some more sleep.

Drake woke the next morning to a scream, and grabbed his bow and bowstring before his eyes were even open. Vivi and Quina seemed to have just woken up as well, so the archer stumbled out of the tent to see what was up, his hands already moving to string his bow before he was truly aware of what was going on.

When he saw that there were no enemies about, he blinked once and yawned, rubbing his bare hand at his eye as he calmed down. Vivi had only just gotten out of the tent, and looked around blearily. Dagger was staring at the corpse of the zaghnol that Drake had killed the night before. It really was huge.

"Jeez, Dagger, y'scared everyone by screaming like that. It's just a dead body. It was getting too close to our camp last night." Drake shrugged a little at Dagger's incredulous stare, and walked over to the carcass, tugging on his arrow a little before giving up on it. "Tch. Buried too deep for me to retrieve." Zidane sighed a little before yawning loudly.

"Mm. And it's been sitting in the sun since it started to come up. We'd better get moving before it really starts to reek." Drake nodded, sending a wary eye towards the sky.

"Yes, before any griffins come to scavenge. I can't imagine those creatures being able to hunt all that well, being so large and awkward." He was remembering the griffin that he had killed underground, though he swore he had memories of watching the beasts wheel about in the sky gracefully.

His had brushed his necklace, and he shook his head slightly before turning and making sure Quina had made it out of the tent before breaking it down, hearing the Qu complain about wasting potential food. Trail rations were passed out as the tent was slipped back into Drake's pouch, and they started off towards the settlement that was in clear view.

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"We came all this way, and there's still no Mist at all..." Drake blinked at Vivi as they paused at the place where the 'bridge' to Conde Petie met the cliff. It looked like it was built on a pair of roots from the Iifa tree, for some reason. There were no signs of toolwork, or really any way that the bridges could be anything but natural, aside from the post that stood well off to the side of the bridge they were near. Only one of the bridges could be walked on, as the other was entirely covered with what was likely a garden for the dwarves. Drake could spot fruits and vegetables growing from his place at the back of the group.

"Yeah, and what a weird-shaped...village? What is that thing?" Zidane glanced back to Drake, directing the question towards the archer, who shrugged. While he was supposedly the 'local expert', he still had no clue what to call Conde Petie. It really was very oddly shaped.

The settlement was oblong, and seemed to be held together more by plants than by mortar. Ivies and roots snaked their way across every surface, including along the inside of the doorframes and windows that the travelers could see. A rock jutted out from the top of the place, and Drake could spot a dwarf staring at them. The uppermost level seemed to be lopsided, and there was a spiral of jutting stones on the slanting face of the wall facing them. A few carved stone towers could be seen, though there was likely a much better view of them from the inside.

"Maybe it's a temple of some kind?" Now Dagger looked to Drake as well, who could do nothing but shrug again, looking frustrated. If they kept asking him questions, he'd likely start to show that he had a headache again, which would only serve to make Dagger frantic with worry.

"Is very delicious shape. Inside might have fine cuisine!" Drake couldn't help but blink at Quina. 'Cuisine' was a rather large word to be coming out of a Qu's mouth. Not that he thought they were stupid or anything, but they spoke in very broken Common. Whether they had a language all their own or just weren't cut out for spoken language, the archer just didn't know.

The Qu trotted up the bridge towards the settlement, likely to indulge in his/her curiosity of the unknown edibles inside. Drake shook his head before glancing towards the sky, scanning the clouds for any griffins that may have taken flight since he last checked. Something about the flying predators set him on edge, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was.

"Geez...All s/he ever thinks about is food." Drake's lips curved in a small smile, his eyes still on the sky. There was a lot of it to look over, and griffins, as Drake had discovered, could fly very high, despite their large size.

"Well, all you ever think about is girls..." The archer now had to bite the corner of his mouth to keep from laughing at the dry tone that came out of the princess, though he could tell by how her voice was swept away by the wind that she had started up the bridge. Zidane wasn't as skilled at telling location by ear, it seemed, though.

"Uh, that's right! My mind is filled with thoughts of...you!" Drake turned to look at Zidane, who was now looking around, having thought that Dagger was behind him. Only Drake and Vivi remained there, though. The archer lifted a hand and pointed at the woman walking the bridge to the settlement.

Vivi stared at Zidane for a moment before turning and trotting to catch up with Dagger, and the thief sighed, scratching the back of his head as he looked to the archer. The darker-haired man tilted his head to the side with a slight smile, making the blond sigh again.

"Maybe I'm trying too hard..." Drake couldn't hide his laughter now, and was glared at for it. "Hey..."

"I'm pretty sure she's more of the sort to go for subtlety. She IS a noblewoman, after all. Flowers, pretty words, and intelligent talk are what's expected of a suitor for her, I'm sure. I think you're lacking in all three." Drake's words apparently made Zidane cross, as the thief folded his arms and scowled at his friend.

"Some help you are in the romance department. The least you could do is talk her around for me." The archer took a step back and held his hands up, his eyebrows rising. Zidane rarely ever sounded quite so testy towards him. "I mean really, everywhere we go, you get all the girls trailing after you, and you don't spare them so much as a glance." Drake sighed, scratching the back of his head with his gloved hand.

"I kinda can't help that, and you know it. Though last time in Lindblum, it was more kids following me around than girls. If the girls would listen to reason, I'd definitely point them towards you, but I really doubt that'd help you with Dagger. Nobles tend to be one-partner-only sorts, unless they're disreputable. Pretty sure they want the same from their partners." Zidane growled again, and trotted up the bridge, obviously intending to get to Dagger's side and back onto her good side as soon as possible.

Drake huffed a bit as he hiked up the root, wondering if his talk had sunk into his brother's head at all. A bit more walking to where a dwarf had come out to greet them, and he blinked as the individual started to yell. More dwarves swarmed down the root-bridge, and the archer ducked with a yelp as a rather large stone zipped through the air where his head had been. His eyes were huge as he stared at the dwarves, and started to back up, holding his hands out to show that he wasn't violent towards them.

The gesture didn't help.

Drake had to turn and run clear onto the plateau, past the carved stone pillar marking the crumbling edge of the cliff, as the dwarves continued to throw rocks at him, yelling what was, to him, incoherent shrieks. Soon, he was out of range of their rocks, but still in hearing range. Zidane and the others looked at a loss for what was happening, but Zidane was starting to look angry. Drake rested his hands on his knees to pant for a moment, frowning a bit with confusion.

Zidane caught his eye, and jerked his thumb towards the mountain. Drake nodded, taking it as they'd meet beyond the town. The archer made a rather rude gesture towards the dwarves, who howled with anger but refused to enter the plateau, and started to walk, grumbling under his breath. It was still morning, thankfully, so he had most of the day to get to the mountains, and he still had a pair of canteens and his own rations. Not to mention the tent, though he had a feeling that Zidane had enough gil on him to buy another from the dwarves. If they had any.

Why had the dwarves attacked him, though? They were supposed to be friendly, a bit silly, and backwards. Instead, as soon as they'd laid eyes on him, they'd turned hostile. Whatever had set them off, it was just about him, and not the others. ...Were they able to tell that, unlike the other, he was actually human? He knew that Dagger looked human, but wasn't. He hadn't shown any sign of it, though he was going to have to explain his lack of surprise once in Madain Sari.

Drake shook his head and huffed a bit at himself, peering over the edge of the cliff to see if there was a safe way down for him to climb. Once he found a suitable spot, he started to climb down, disappearing from the sight of the dwarves.

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**End Notes:** Okay, so here's the chapter that I got stuck on. A fair-sized chunk of this one and the next one I wrote months ago and just went through it to make sure that nothing in it was conflicting with what I've created since then. The poetry bit was a bit hard to force.

I know I've got lots of readers. I can see it in my traffic stats. Do I have to start naming people who review to get some constructive criticism? Read, enjoy, and review, folks. The reviews help with getting the next chapter out quicker.


	13. Wild Hunt

**Authoress' Note:** Jeez, I've had way too much on my plate lately. DX I had to take care of the house, work, and do homework. I didn't have the time to work on any of my stories for a few weeks. I'll be trying to work on them more, though.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise. The only character that I own in this chapter is Drake.

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Chapter 13: Wild Hunt

Drake huffed as he crested the cliff he'd been climbing, looking down at the switchback trail he'd just taken. He was covered in dust, and the sun was well overhead, midday having long since passed. Fire burned in his chest, still furious at the dwarves. In the game, they'd been pleasant towards the party, and now he discovered that that was simply because none of them had been human. They'd somehow been able to tell that Dagger was a Summoner and not human, which likely meant that they had a sense that humans didn't have.

A shrill bird cry made the archer look up, and he ducked a blur that was trying to divebomb him, unfortunately tilting himself towards the cliff again. He yelped as he felt himself falling, and twisted to face the cliff again, snatching at the cliff, wincing as the stones cut up his hands until he caught himself on a ledge.

The archer grimaced as he felt blood leaking from the slashed skin of his fingers and hands, his glove completely trashed, and closed his eyes for a moment before looking around to see what had tried to attack him. His eyes widened and a curse slipped past his lips as he saw a griffin wheeling in the air for another pass. He grunted as he forced himself up onto the ledge, which was just barely large enough to hold him. He panted, pushing his pain off to the side as he pulled his bow out, making a mental note to clean the blood off as soon as he could. An arrow was slid out of a quiver, and Drake lifted hands shaking with pain to nock the arrow and point it towards the offending monster. He took a deep breath and concentrated on keeping his hands still just long enough to release the arrow. He then looked around and saw that he was on the trail again, and started to hike up again.

"Hey! You alright?" Drake looked up with surprise at the call, and blinked at the slender man sliding down a small slope from the next switch up. "I saw that fall. Are you okay?" Drake blinked again, and lifted his free hand to show his ripped up hand. The man winced at that, and looked up to where he'd just slid from. "Brother-"

"I'll take care of it. You go and get him to the village." The slender man gestured for Drake to hand him his bow, which the archer gratefully did, his hands still shaking with pain and dripping with blood.

Drake blinked again as he saw the man that the slender one had been talking to. He was buff and looked as though he was quite at home on the mountain, to his brother's city. The archer started towards the switch again, only to have his upper arm grabbed by the slender man.

"That way's to the tree. The village is this way." Drake blinked and followed him, his breathing still fairly uneven from the pain. They walked until they were away from where the Griffin could get at them, and then the slender man stopped, turning around to look at him.

Drake blinked as he finally took notice of what he looked like. He had bright blonde hair under the dirt of travel, and brilliant blue eyes, not unlike the color of Zidane's. He had light armor on over a simple tan shirt, and wore a tattered cloak pushed back over his shoulders. Well-worn boots covered his feet, with a pair of nearing-threadbare pants tucked into them. A pair of knives were attached to the belt cast over his hips as well as a pair of cloth bags, and his ears were each pierced a few times, bits of horn sticking out of them and a single metal earring in each ear.

"Should be safe enough to tend to your hands for now." Drake blinked and looked for a rock to sit on. "Good idea. You're looking a bit pale." The blonde pulled a hi-potion out of a pouch that looked to be the same as Drake's, the vibrant green telling the archer that it wasn't one of the weaker types of healing items. The man pulled the cork out for Drake, and held the vial out to him. "Here. I figure you'd want to hold it yourself."

Drake smirked a little lopsidedly, and gingerly took the vial, tossing the liquid back and swallowing it before the taste set. He noticed the man look a little startled, and dropped the bottle to the ground as his skin started to heal.

"Guess I should have expected an archer to know about the taste, but..." The man paused, Drake wondered why, but didn't look up. "...You're local, right?" Drake lifted his head to raise an eyebrow at him, and the man frowned, looking concerned. Likely with good reason, seeing as the forest spun slightly around him. Drake was feeling the combination of bloodloss and hunger. He'd neglected to eat at noon.

"Amnesia. Not sure where I'm from, exactly," Drake drawled, and closed his eyes with a wince as the burning of his hands indicated that had he not had the potion, he'd have gotten an infection. The rasp of cloth sliding over wood made him open his eyes, seeing the blonde was wiping the blood from his bow. "Thanks. I'd rather not have my bow stained with my own blood."

Footsteps made Drake snap his head to the path they'd just walked down, suddenly tense. He relaxed only as he saw it was the man from earlier. His hair and eyes were the exact same as the slender man's, only his hair wasn't pulled back into as long a tail as his brother's. This man wasn't wearing a shirt, showing off his muscles, and the dirt covering him. They weren't protruding, but they still showed a fair amount. His pants were worn, but sturdy. His pants were in better condition than his brother's, despite the battle he'd obviously just gone through. His boots, however, were in worse condition, small tears and scratches decorating their surface. There was a leather cord around his neck, holding a metal claw against his sternum. The buffer man looked at Drake with a slight smile, noticing his tension.

The faces of the two brothers weren't all too similar, with the buffer one having a broader jaw and a crooked nose, as well as the beginnings of a beard. The slender one was clean-shaven, with high cheekbones that made his jaw look much thinner. Each had some small, faded scars visible, but nothing on the level of what Drake had seen.

"Glad to see you're alright, Wolfe." Drake twitched at the name, confusion lighting his face. How did he know...? The slender man cleared his throat, and Drake's eyes slid to the ground, thinking. The buzz that his headache made felt a little more intense, drowning out much of the forest's noise.

"Sabin, he's..." That name also made Drake blink, but he filed it away in his head for later consideration. He could hear that they were whispering, but he didn't listen in, too busy trying to figure things out. The slender one had apparently thought he was local, and the buffer one, Sabin, had known his middle name, which was also what he went by when he was younger. The archer's ruined glove pressed against the side of his head, the fragments of the leather fingers pressing hard into his scalp.

Drake flinched as he felt something hit his shoulder, and glanced at it to find it was his bow. He grabbed it and ran his thumb over where his blood had been, his mind still whirling with thoughts. He took a deep, slightly shaky breath, and looked up. Both of the blondes were looking at him, a little concerned. He stood, and looped his bow over his shoulder, making sure it didn't catch on his pauldron.

"You look an awful lot like one of our friends who disappeared a few years ago. Everyone called him Wolfe." Drake looked at Sabin, his eyes as calm as could be. He could see a question in the buff man's eyes, and wasn't sure if he wanted to get the man's hopes up. He didn't want to lie to him, though. When he was around ten, he'd ran around telling everyone to call him by his middle name. No one had really listened to him.

"Wolfe was...one of the names I can remember responding to." The eyes of both men widened, and Drake rubbed the back of his head, feeling the ruined leather catch on his hair slightly. "I lost a good deal of my memories a couple of years ago. I was taken in by a group of actors in Lindblum. That was where I learned archery." The two brothers looked at each other, looking almost as if they'd just seen a ghost. He knew he was still looking a bit confused, though. His headache wasn't helping with it much.

"The elders aren't gonna be happy with that information." Drake lifted an eyebrow at the slender brother, wondering at that. Sabin looked a bit confused as well, and looked at his brother.

"Why? Everyone was worried when he left, even the elders." Drake tilted his head, and looked at his left hand, frowning as he saw that the leather bracer was ripped along inside of his arm. A pity, seeing as it was new. He pulled the object off, showing the long, ragged shape of the scar he had gained when his bow snapped as he drew it. "Wh-whoa! That's quite a scar." Drake looked up, and tucked his ruined bracer into his belt, holding up his left arm, noticing the tan line he had.

"My old bow shattered. I'm lucky that I didn't lose my eye, let alone that this is the only scar I have from that." The brothers looked at him a little oddly because of how calm he was about it, and Drake lifted an eyebrow at them as he tugged off the ruined glove on his right hand. "...I've been through war. A few scars is nothing to brag about, especially if it was because my equipment broke." Reminded of that, Drake turned his attention to his bow, pulling it off his back as he tucked the ruined glove into his belt next to the bracer before running his bare fingers over the wood to make sure it wasn't cracking.

"War...?" Drake looked up, confused that they didn't know about it, then shook his head, smiling and rubbing at his forehead. His headache continued to bother him, but he couldn't help but smile with relief that the news of the war hadn't reached here. It was a bit refreshing, too, how they didn't immediately get angry at the mention of the war.

"I keep forgetting that I'm not on the Mist Continent anymore." He dropped his hand and his smile, straightening. "The kingdom of Alexandria was enticed into war with the other kingdoms on the continent. They attacked without warning, and I and my friends went to the aid of the kingdom they attacked. I'm a wanted man there." He slid his hand into his pouch, and pulled out his Stellazio, feeling calmer as soon as it touched his fingers. He looked up as he heard both of the brothers suck in air all of a sudden.

Their eyes were fixed on Drake's metal feather, wide with shock. Drake tilted his head to the side a little, and flipped the object in his hand, tucking it under his armor. He'd found out a while ago that there was a pocket built into the armor that was just the size needed to keep the Stellazio over his heart. The feather going out of sight seemed to break their shock, and Sabin turned to his brother.

"Well, Ed, there's your answer. The elders won't be able to kick him out. He's a Chosen." Drake lifted an eyebrow. That must have been something the two brothers had talked about. The elders of their village must have been really xenophobic if they didn't want to accept people in.

"True enough. Well, let's get going." Drake nodded to Edgar and started to follow him, not really even noticing when Sabin brought up the rear. He was getting far too used to tactical arrangements of party members. Sometimes he would walk in the back of the group while Zidane led, or he'd walk in the middle along with Vivi, where the two of them could attack in any direction. "Uhm...Also, what do you want us to call you?" Drake blinked at Edgar's back at the awkward question, and smirked a little. He was wondering when they would ask that.

"Drake. It's the name I've taken since whatever incident took my memories. I managed to remember my true name, but I'm already so used to responding to this name that I might as well keep using it." Drake tilted as he started to hear a fairly familiar sound, and looked confused for a moment. Why were there bagpipes playing?

The sound was echoing through the wooded area, along with the faint hint of drums. The rhythm was one that he recognized somehow, but he couldn't figure it out. A whinny made him jump, and his eyes widened at the sight of a creature he hadn't thought he'd ever see again. The shaggy black pony flicked an ear at him before lowering its head to eat the grass beside the path. It wasn't quite like the horses Drake had learned to ride on while at camp in his youth, but it was close enough. Two more shapes caught his attention, and then several more. A small herd of horses was right in front of him!

The appearance of the animal really set Drake's mind into a whirl. Gaia was supposed to be a world where chocobos completely replaced horses. So why were the beasts here, in the mountains? Granted he hated to ride a chocobo as he constantly felt like he was about to fall off, but that was him remembering Earth...wasn't it?

Edgar smiled and stopped to pat the one that had caught his attention, proving that it wasn't just Drake's imagination. The horse snorted and turned its head, seeming to not like the touch much. Drake stepped closer, and knelt about a foot in front of the horse, letting it lift its head and turn it to investigate him. He ripped a handful of grass from the ground and held it out on a flat hand for it to take, as a peace offering. The horse snuffled his hand for a moment, and then delicately picked the grass up to chew it. The archer smiled.

"...It's been ages since I last saw a horse." He saw the sharp movement of Edgar's head out of the corner of his eye, and turned to look at the slender man. "That was one thing that's confused me for a long while. I could remember them, but couldn't find them anywhere on the Mist continent." Drake frowned as a set of memories that wasn't really his flashed through his head again, and flinched at the headache a bit, lifting a hand to run his fingers through his bangs. The hand that the horse had cleaned of grass was planted on the ground to keep him from falling over.

The memory had been of running down this path after two blonde boys, calling for them to wait, and then falling flat on his face, his knee hitting a sharp stone. Drake shook his head slightly, pushing the memory to the side. Hadn't he had a dream like that...? Now wasn't the time to be lost in thought. He twitched as he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned his head to blink at Sabin, who was looking at him a little concerned.

"Don' push yerself. This in't the place nor th' time f'r it." Drake blinked at the sudden accent change, but that was his only reaction. He rubbed his head one last time, and nodded, taking a deep breath. He dropped his hand from his head, but didn't stand, not quite trusting his balance yet.

"I know." The archer's eyes snapped open as the horse stamped its foot and snapped its head up, both of them listening attentively. Drake's eyes weren't focused, though he did have an intense look on his face. Edgar and Sabin, now several feet away from Drake, looked a little startled at the attentiveness, and wary as the archer slowly slid his bow off of his shoulder as he stood. The archer's eyes slid to the other side of the path, and he settled his bow in his hand as he tugged the cover off of his quiver a little and slipped an arrow out of it.

The arrow was nocked, drawn, and released as soon as he saw a long-eared head pop up between the bushes. Drake huffed as the head fell back, a new addition to its forehead. He slung his bow back on his shoulder, an annoyed look on his face. He recognized the creature as a distant relative of the Goblins of the Mist continent. They always rubbed him wrong.

"Goblins. Hate them so much. And that one was the sort that can use magic, if I recall right..." Drake held a hand up to his head again, two different memories fighting for his attention. One was from the past he could remember, and the other was running away from a group of creatures much like the one he'd just killed. He staggered a little at the sensation, only to feel a wide hand catch his shoulder.

"Hey, hey. Ye alright?" Drake nodded a bit as he got his feet under himself, his hand not leaving his temples. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, frowning a bit.

"Just got a bad headache. I should be fine, though I likely should sit down for a while soon." Edgar looked as worried as his brother, peering into the archer's eyes intently. Drake smiled a bit weakly, and dropped his hand, taking another deep breath. "I fought through battle shock. I can handle a headache." Edgar's eyebrows rose, and he nodded, respecting the archer more.

"Let's go, then. Won't get to the village just standing here." Drake rubbed at the bridge of his nose for a moment before blinking at Edgar, who was moving to one of the horses. Sabin moved to another, and nodded towards the horse that hadn't moved from Drake's side. The archer tilted his head a little before vaulting up onto the horse and settling onto its bare back comfortably, fighting off the memory of the dream he'd had just the night before. It wouldn't do now to fall into his memories.

The brothers exchanged smiles before starting off. Drake adjusted his bow so that it wouldn't catch on any low-lying tree branches, and gently tapped the pony's side with his heel. He felt only slightly awkward on the small beast. The memories he could truly recall clearly told him that someone his size should be riding on a full-sized horse, not one as small as this. The odd memories that he couldn't recall clearly showed that the tribe of magic-wielding goblins was sadly common in the area, so he kept an eye out for rustling bushes.

As they rode, the sound of bagpipes increased, and Drake found a tune slipping through his head. He couldn't remember where he'd heard it before, but he hummed along. He didn't notice that Edgar and Sabin were as well. They weren't too far ahead, and kept glancing back at him as if they were afraid he'd disappear into the forest.

"Axes flash, broadswords swing,  
Shining armor's piercing ring!  
Horses run with a polished shield,  
Fight those bastards till they yield!  
Midnight mare, and blood-red roan  
Fight to keep this land your own!  
Sound the horn and call the cry,  
How many of them can we make die?"

Drake blinked at the song, pausing as he realized he was singing as well, and looked confused. The words slid from his tongue like a favorite song, but he didn't know where it came from. Edgar noticed the third voice that started and then stopped, and glanced over his shoulder. Drake hardly noticed, his eyes focusing on the dark mane of the horse he was riding. Sabin merely kept singing, his voice echoing slightly in the forest. The path they were on was well-used, the earth tamped and kept clean of weeds, winding along the ridge as they headed west.

"Follow orders as you're told,  
Make their yellow blood run cold!  
Fight until you die or drop  
A force like ours is hard to stop!  
Close your mind to stress and pain  
Fight till you're no longer sane!  
Let not one damned cur pass by,  
How many of them can we make die?"

Drake ran his fingers through his hair as they reached the clearing the bagpipes were in, the sounds of drums becoming clearer and clearer. Three people were sitting there, dressed in leather and fur, and three horses clad in the proper tack grazed nearby. The one with the bagpipes had an axe leaning against his leg, and the other two had absurdly large swords. They weren't like the swords that Steiner used, which were all one handed swords, despite how he gripped them. These were hand-and-a-half swords. The man with the mandolin grinned as he saw Edgar, and waved at him for a moment as the slender man halted his horse. Sabin waved to him as well, halting his steed in the clearing proper beside Drake, whose horse stopped when Sabin's did.

The man playing the bagpipes stopped as he saw the traveler and his guides, and stared at him for a few seconds as the archer trailed after Edgar and Sabin. The other two exchanged glances, looks of wonder on their faces. Drake merely sighed, wondering how many people would ask him if he was the missing member of their village. Every time the thought passed through his head, his brain all but screamed as two sets of memories surfaced, each containing childhood memories.

"A visitor, so close to samhain? It must be an omen." Drake blinked at that, images popping into his head from one of the two sets of memories. The other set of memories had no experience with the holiday, apparently, and was blissfully silent.

Memories of a large fire, of song and dancing, swept through Drake's head. It seemed to be a time of plenty, as there was a sense of contentment in the memories. He also seemed to remember a good deal of mysticism during that time, and what he could remember made him think of the pagans of his other memories.

"'E looks like Wolfe…On'y a bit older." Drake blinked at the one with the drum as he spoke what the archer was expecting. "An' Wolfe used a sword…though poorly." Drake blinked at that, remembering what old Rachel had told him when he'd gotten new clothing from her. His eyes slid to the side as he cast back in his memories for what she'd said. He had the muscles of a swordfighter, but they were atrophied, and he had no talent with the sword, as he'd found out for a fact during the play.

"Wolfe ain't written back for a' least two years, and 'e said 'e would." Drake blinked at that, mentally checking to see how long it'd been since he'd woken up in Lindblum. He kept it to himself, though, no wanting to have to explain over and over and over again. If he remembered right, it had been about two years. Maybe a few months over it.

"Anyway. It's nearin' nightfall, an' 'tis poor luck t'leave a trav'ler wi'out a place to stay so close to samhain." Drake sighed a little with relief as Edgar got them moving again, plus the musicians, and turned his head a bit as he heard rustling behind them. He got a glimpse of a goblin, but it dropped back into the bush as soon as it spotted him looking at it.

"The evil fae are out in number this day. Drake here's already snuffed one, and did a deal of damage to a griffon." The archer scratched the back of his head as they walked, not entirely comfortable with the admiring looks he was getting. "With 'is hands all cut up, no less." Drake sighed a bit at that, and looked to where they were going as a village came into view. He tilted his head to the side at the simple layout.

Several wood and stone houses lay around what looked like it would become a bonfire later in the night. Beyond the houses lay stables for horses and the like, and beyond those lay fields planted under and around large trees. All along the edges of the small village were tents large and small, colorfully dyed. The scent of roasting meat filled the air, and laughter and shouts of amusement filled the air.

"Home. There's nothin' like it." Drake looked at Sabin as the blonde clapped him on the shoulder, and then looked towards the group of old men that were walking towards them. "An' 'ere's the elders t'try 'n throw y'out, Drake." The archer didn't fail to note that Sabin's voice dropped to a murmur as the old men approached.

The one in the lead looked over Drake with a disapproving scowl before turning to Sabin and Edgar, who had dismounted. The musicians were riding their horses towards the stable, so Drake followed the lead of the brothers. He grunted a little and almost fell as his feet landed back on the ground, though his horse didn't seem to mind the slim man leaning on the beast's back. The slender man was digging into his belt pouch. He pulled out a bundle of herbs, which he handed to a woman that stepped towards him with a relieved look on her face.

"Y'leave us t' gather herbs f'r th' ill, an' y'come back wi' 'nother mouth f'r us t'feed. We've tolerated y'r presence in our village a'couse o' yer father an' th' Stellazio y'carry." Drake sighed a bit, drawing attention to himself, and pulled his metal feather out to spin it in his fingers, looking over the village again. The number of people amongst the buildings and tents was surprisingly large, making him wonder if this was a multi-village gathering. If so, why this particular village?

There were no gasps, so Drake figured that his Stellazio hadn't been noticed yet, and he was free to continue looking around. He looked towards the largest building in the village, impressed by the craftsmanship that he could see even from this distance. The logs by the doors were carved. There were two to the left of the door, and one to the right that were carved. The right-hand log was carved with a deer with the moon in its antlers surrounded by what he thought was herbs. The log closer to the door on the left was carved into a bear with the moon in its paws, with what looked like an axe over its left shoulder and a sword over its right. The third was carved only halfway, with a wolf looking like it was about to bite something, its upper lip raised in a snarl. The wood where it would have been biting something was blank and rough, though. Someone had stopped carving it mid-way.

Drake blinked as he stared at the log, a memory blotting out reality. A white wolf stood before him in a forest clearing, its intelligent yellow eyes meeting his without fear. **"Rest your mind, boy. Be not impatient. Each pack needs an alpha, and each alpha must first learn to follow. Your time will come. You will earn your pack, but not yet. Patience will lead you from Fenrir's path."** The wolf's voice was rough but kind, and though its mouth moved like he knew a wolf's did, he understood its speech as though it was human.

A heavy hand on Drake's shoulder shook him from the memory, and he blinked at Sabin, who had turned and was bending over a little to peer into his eyes. The monk's worried look eased as he saw that the archer was back in the present, albeit confused, and turned to look at the elders. Drake blinked as he saw someone that was dressed in proper woolen clothes and hat, with pale skin as if he were used to being indoors, and ice-pale blue eyes. The way he held himself rubbed Drake wrong, with his nose in the air and looking down it at everyone. As if he were above living in the mountains and saw it as an imposition, staying with the village.

"He's not fit t'camp. Y'saw f'r y'rself." Edgar sent Drake a concerned look before also turning to the elders, a steely look in his eyes as he drew himself up. A particularly fiery glare was sent the way of the pale man.

"Sabin and I will welcome him into our lodge. He is a Chosen from the continent the Iifa tree's roots lead to." Edgar's voice suddenly lost the accent that had been prevalent on the trail, a tone of authority entering it. The elders eyed Drake as the archer slid his metal feather into his pouch and rubbed at his forehead, trying to hide his grimace.

"Any ill he brings will fall on you, then." The pale man spoke, and elders turned, though one of them eyed Drake as if he suspected something, a not-so-hostile look in his lone eye. The other was scarred shut. Drake saw nothing but him for a moment.

The man was dressed in gray, and had a light covering of dust that must have been from traveling. Despite that, he looked to be in good shape, with a straight back and strong legs yet. His clothing was well-made and well-taken care of. An ever-so-slight smile curved the old man's lips and a vague nod was directed towards Drake before he broke eye contact.

Drake immediately looked elsewhere, feeling a sudden chill. He couldn't get rid of the feeling that there was something different about that man, though something immediately caught his attention. A woman now stood in the door of the largest lodge, a bronze object resting around the base of her neck as she looked over the newcomers.

Drake swore that he saw hope in her eyes.

Sabin set his hand on Drake's shoulder and steered him towards a sturdily built lodge that was possibly one of the smallest in the village. Edgar waved to them a bit before walking to the woman that had come out of the lodge Drake had been staring at, greeting her with a bow and some words that Drake couldn't make out. The horses had been herded towards the stable by a bunch of children who laughed and ran around, apparently having made a game of the duty.

As Drake entered the lodge, he was struck by how home-like it felt. The floor was tamped earth, but there was a twig broom next to the door. Herbs hung from the rafters, adding a spicy scent to the air. Something about the place kept bothering him, though, causing a sense of nostalgia to wash over him.

Sabin made Drake sit on a cot next to the hearth, and stoked the embers that had been buried there. Drake looked around the small lodge more, seeing that there were two cots on the first floor, and a ladder that led to a half loft. Small carvings lined shelves all along the walls, and Drake recognized them as monsters from the Forgotten continent. One or two he saw as being from elsewhere, like the tonberry with its hollow lantern. He shivered a little, getting chills from just looking at the figurine. The wood itself was tinged green, and while the creature didn't look exactly like it had in the game, it was still close enough to frighten him a little. He was hoping to avoid ever meeting one.

"Catch." Drake's attention flicked to Sabin at the man's word, and caught the object that was tossed to him without seeing what it was. He blinked at it, and flipped it in his hand, taking a closer look at it. He couldn't help but chuckle, an eager light in his eyes.

"A flute. My fingers 'ave been itchin' to play Zidane's since I saw he had one." Drake lifted the instrument and blew into it gently, a part of him wondering how he knew the song that he started to play. He'd never heard it before, and yet it came to him as easily as if he had played it every day. It caused the nostalgia to wash over him even more, niggling at him. It was as familiar as this room was.

The tune was light and jaunty, a perky melody that made him think of how he felt in the woods, as if he belonged there. Like he felt he belonged in this village, in this room. Like he felt the music belonged to him. He broke off the song partway through, leaning over to press his hands to his head. The memories that weren't from Earth pushed at him, though he pushed back at them, not wanting Sabin to see him space out as completely as he had in the tunnels.

He must have passed out then, as the next thing he knew, he was waking up on that cot by the hearth, listening to the brothers argue just outside their lodge. He sat up with a small groan, feeling his muscles argue against the movement, and blinked down at the armor he was still wearing. He started to take it off as he listened to the brothers.

"Again, 'ow was I t'know 'e'd pass out like tha? 'E wasna showin' signs o' bloodloss, an' y'know tha' healin' o' th' head is tricky!" Drake set down his jerkin and pauldron, stretching his shoulders out with a small sigh. He patted his pouch to assure himself it was there and moving silently to the door of the lodge. Apparently he either wasn't silent enough, or just was in the wrong position to not get spotted.

"I thought y'were going to tell him to take a nap! Not ask him if he knew how t'play- How long have you been awake?" Drake grinned as Edgar noticed him right off. He wasn't all that surprised, seeing as the two brothers were apparently Chosen. Drake had his feather in his hand, as well, so he wasn't exactly doing his best to hide, either.

"A minute. How long was I out?" Edgar glanced at the sky, so Drake did as well. The sun had passed beneath the treetops, tingeing the clouds above a beautiful orange-red. His head wasn't feeling quite as light as it had earlier, which told him that he was recovering from when his hands had gotten shredded. He'd found on his way to Cleyra that he didn't recover from bloodloss terribly quickly.

"Quite a while. Th' lady was askin' after ye a while back. We jus' tol' 'er that ye needed a nap." Edgar jerked his thumb towards the largest lodge, a slightly weary look on his face. "She's high priestess, an' mother of Wolfe." Drake blinked a few times. Her face had looked familiar...As if he'd seen her before, somewhere. It wasn't possible, though. He'd been on the Mist Continent as long as he'd been on Gaia.

"Hm. Well, I definitely need food. I'm still feeling a bit lightheaded." The brothers cast concerned glances towards each other, though Drake didn't really pay all that much attention, looking towards where a group of people were dancing around a bonfire.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Dagger sighed as she watched Zidane barter with one of the dwarves, a very angry look on his face. The dwarves didn't seem to notice, or if they did, they didn't care. The dwarves had stubbornly avoided answering any questions about why they'd chased Drake off, or any questions about whether they had seen Kuja. Zidane's patience was wearing thin very quickly, however.

The fact that the dwarves wouldn't let them pass through their village didn't help. Dagger was trying to figure out what they would have to do to get through, but she kept being told to find the priest of the village. Quina wasn't helping much either, harassing the dwarves and demanding food.

Trying to trade with the dwarves was like trying to talk a mountain into moving, as well, so it had taken most of the day just to get more rations from them. Dagger couldn't get any of the dwarves to listen to her, aside from the women, which was driving her up the wall. Even Vivi could get the attention of the dwarves better than she could.

She'd heard them mention a 'sanctuary', though she couldn't get a straight answer as to what it was, or where it was. The oddest thing was what the dwarves had called a 'kirkboat', which was the most well-crafted thing in the whole settlement. She'd thought it was the 'sanctuary' they were talking about for a moment, until a child corrected her before running off with another child before she was able to thank him.

"Dagger!" The frustrated princess turned to look at Zidane as he trotted up to her, his face tight with his own irritation, but not towards her. "There's an inn here where we can stay the night. I managed to get enough rations to serve us for a while yet. Where're Vivi and Quina?" Dagger sighed a little, and turned to gesture towards where Vivi was cornered by a pair of very talkative dwarves. "Ah. It's weird, they're all iffy about you, me, and Quina, but they've just opened right up to Vivi."

Dagger huffed a little and started towards the inn. She was glad to see that the rooms were a little more secluded than many of the inns that she'd had to stay in, such as the one in Dali, and the two that she'd gone between in Lindblum. It was late, and though she was still a bit hungry, she decided to go to sleep, anyhow. She was in no mood to spend any time with anyone.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

"An' then 'e 'ad th' gall t'look me in th' eye 's if 'e innocent as a babe!" Edgar snorted, sitting on a log by the bonfire. He'd insisted that Drake tell him what he could remember of his life. Edgar was definitely an attentive listener, sipping at his mug of mead only occasionally. "Baku was sore angered when I came back wi'out th' right change. Walked right o'er an' gave th' man a piece o' his mind."

Drake grinned widely at the memory, perched comfortably on top of another log, facing the elder of the blond duo. His elbow rested on his knee, and his foot was set on the edge of the log. A pair of wooden bowls and spoons lay nearby, proof that they'd eaten before starting to drink.

Drake actually found mead to be easier to swallow than whatever Locke had given him back in Lindblum. It didn't have quite so much fire, going down. It also tasted a fair sight better, with a hint of honey rather than nothing at all, like the whatever Locke had given him.

"Hah! Teaches 'im right t' cheat sommun!" Edgar was just a little louder than normal, grinning widely. A loud, boisterous laugh made both of the men glance towards Sabin, where he was sitting with a pretty young woman on his knee. The two were flirting rather heavily, and Sabin looked like he had been drinking a lot. "Tch. Th' two o' them're so tight 's a s'prise they 'ent handfasted yet." Drake lifted an eyebrow at Edgar, taking another gulp from his mug.

"They sure look like it." Edgar shrugged, chuckling, and held out the skin that the two of them had been draining slowly. Drake allowed his friend to fill up his mug, and drank a bit more with a grin. "She is rather pretty, though I bet Sab would hit me for flirting with his girl." Edgar choked a little on his mead, laughing.

"Aye, that'n you look jus' like 'er cousin." It was Drake's turn to choke now, this time with surprise. Edgar grinned over his mug at his friend, a slight laugh coming from him. A young woman with a basket full of fresh-baked rolls stepped by, and Edgar snagged a couple from the basket without her noticing, tossing one to Drake as he recovered from his coughing fit.

"Oh, aye, she'd not look't me then." Oddly, Drake had adjusted to the accent of the area quickly, and had even picked it up as if it were his own. "Why'm I not surprised y'can do that?" The archer tossed the roll in the air a little to let it cool down before he pulled it apart. Edgar grinned, not even affected by the warm bread.

"Cause I'm Chosen o' thieves?" Drake tilted his head to the side and shrugged. "I'd wager y're a fair sight better'n most archers in this region, n'matter y' look like one o' us." Drake shrugged.

"Was able t'get fair well teachers on th' Mist continent." Edgar tilted his head to the side at the name, hooking his elbow around his knee.

"'Ow'd th' place get such'n odd name?" Drake chuckled, and took another gulp of mead. He felt a bit more clear-headed after eating the bread. He didn't want to get too drunk.

"Th' whole land's covered in a thick mist. It 'ent mist like y'get 'ere. 'S thicker, an' boosts magic. Monsters c'n form outta it, too. There was a place where I saw a fresh dead body get up an' attack." Edgar's face paled slightly. Drake sighed.

"Fresh dead? Y'said y'went through war. When'd that start?" Drake sighed a little and looked towards the bonfire, trying to keep from getting lost in his memories. "Y'don' have t'tell me if't's hard." Drake shook his head with a slight smile.

"Not hard s'much as tryin' to figger out where t'start. First I knew o' it, th'battlin' had already started. Alexandria, one o' th'three big powers o' th' continent, invaded th' land Burmecia. Weakest o' th'three, in terms o' military, though y'don' wanna cross one'a their knights. They got quality troops, not quantity like t'other two. Quality c'n be taken down when caught 'ff guard." Edgar nodded, looking at Drake intently. "I'd just won th' contest durin' th' Hunt Festival when a soldier from Burmecia arrived. 'E died right 'n front o' th' regent. Wore hisself out makin' a mad dash from Burmecia t'Lindblum on choco-back.

"Me an' my friends offered t' head t' Burmecia ahead o' Lindblum's airships. Took us most've a week t'get 'cross th' plains t' the tunnel the Constellato Gizamaluke guards. There's where I first killed." Drake paused to look at his mug and take a gulp, just to wet his throat a little. "I can't remember most've the trip through the tunnel. I know I kept fightin', though. I c'n recall fightin' th' Constellato. He was spelled. Berserk, I think. I took out one o' his eyes, an' thank'lly, 'e dinnae take offense.

"Was another couple a days afore we got t' Burmecia." Drake shuddered a little, his hands clenching around his mug for a moment. "Fought th' army o' Alexandria proper, there. Killed prolly a dozen o' their women." A confused look from Edgar made the archer smile tiredly. "Alexandria's army is made mostly of women. They've a male contingent, though from what I've seen, they aren't too impressive. Anyhow, we fought our way through th' city, savin' what folk we could. There weren't too many left. Th' king was long gone. We found th' queen of Alexandria there, though.

"She 'ad her best general there, reportin' on the battle. Th' man we figger had th' influence t' start th' war was there, too..." A hard look entered Drake's eyes now, glaring at the embers by the side of the bonfire. "Along wi' the fae woman as fooled me." Edgar sat up a little straighter, an odd look in his eyes.

"Describe her?" Drake blinked at Edgar, and sighed, his eyes following an ember through the air as he took a gulp of his mead.

"Very pretty with light brown hair falling to her hips. Slender but curvy. Eyes that seem t'see right through ya. Pouty lips, air of mystery an' power. Very smart." Edgar shuddered and marked a crescent on his thigh with his thumb, a scowl on his face.

"I've met her. A dangerous woman indeed." Drake blinked at that information, and tilted his head to the side. "She's in th' castle Sab an' I were born in. She 'ent th' master o' it, though. I dinnae know 'is name, let alone what 'e looks like." Drake sighed a little.

"I do." He looked to Edgar, a weary look on his face. "His name is Kuja. He's a pale man, with silvered hair. He's young, though. Younger'n that'n." Drake nodded towards the pale man that was glaring at the two of them. "Dressed in fine clothes, an' acts...well, like an actor. Seen 'im flip 'is hair more'n once." Edgar snorted, and Drake smiled a little. Making fun of an enemy was a sure way to ease the mood. "He was in Burmecia as well. Gave Anastasia leave t'fight." Edgar shifted a little at the venom in Drake's words as he said the woman's name. "She went after me more'n the rest. Was trying to kill me." The archer's hand moved to his chest, rubbing at his sternum as he remembered the pain of the lightning attack he'd suffered. "Damn near did."

"Boys, more stew?" Drake and Edgar were both distracted from the glum topic as one of the women came by with a steaming pot that she had to hold with her apron folded around the handle. Both men offered up their bowls, and thanked the woman as she moved to the next group of people.

"So tha' war's still goin'?" Drake nodded as he blew on the spoonful of stew, and then sighed a little.

"Well, technically no, seeing as Alexandria has claimed the other two nations as her own. But an official treaty means nothing if the people don't observe it." Edgar grinned, showing that he understood completely, and snagged another couple of rolls as another woman went past with rolls from the same batch as earlier.

"Hah. I can understand that. Catch." Drake caught the roll with one hand, and dipped it into the stew before biting the wet part off.

"Mm. Tastes like home." Edgar laughed at that, and ate his stew and bread rather quickly, seeming to ignore the scalding heat. "And you have _got_ to be burning your mouth." Edgar snickered as he mopped up the last of his stew.

"This's nothin' compared t' th' food I grew up eatin'. That's got fire to it. This's just heat." Drake tilted his head to the side, not understanding. "Chilies. Little red ones that set your mouth on fire." Drake winced, remembering when he'd encountered something like that before coming to Gaia. He'd instantly gone for an entire gallon of milk, and still complained about the heat afterwards. "Yeah, you know what I mean." Edgar cackled a little, and Drake glared at him a little before sitting up and sniffing, looking around. "Ooh, I smell sweets. I'll be right back, I've got an idea of who's got that."

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake couldn't help but laugh as he supported Sabin a little, the larger man having drained at least one wineskin, and more likely than not, two. Edgar had drunk lightly, as Drake had, despite all the women trying to convince the two to drink deep. They even were retiring early, more likely than not because Drake had mentioned several times that he wanted to find his friends, once he'd been filled in on why the dwarves had chased him away.

"So, once we get this huge lug out of bed in the morn, we'll head off an' get a look at Conde Petie. Lucky ye ride like y'do. E'en bareback don' bother ye." Drake smiled and shrugged a little, though he staggered a bit as Sabin leaned towards him.

"...'Ey, either o'ye 'ear anythin'?" Drake blinked at Sabin, and tilted his head to the side, his eyes unfocusing a moment as he listened intently. Edgar merely scoffed before grunting, his brother resting most of his weight on his older, but thinner shoulders.

"...Hoofbeats. Hoofbeats and baying hounds." For some reason, the faint sound filled him with panic. Judging by the suddenly aware look on Sabin's face and the ghost-white shade that Edgar's turned to, he was feeling that way for a very good reason.

"Get my brother t'th' lodge." Drake huffed as Sabin was suddenly pushed towards him, but Edgar was already running back to the bonfire before the archer could complain.

"C'mon." Sabin didn't seem to mind being shoved, and even seemed to be better able to balance. "Thank th' huntress mead don' affect me long." A glance backwards showed the bonfire being quickly abandoned, with people moving towards the nearest buildings, including the stable and barn. The only ones that weren't making any movement towards a building was the pale man and several elders that seemed to hang on his every word.

Drake was hauled into the small lodge, and Sabin collapsed onto one of the cots, growling a little as he realized his balance was still affected. Drake moved to the window and closed it, blinking at his hands as he realized he was shaking. The sound of the mass of horses and hounds was significantly closer, increasing the anxiety that Drake felt.

"Been ages since th' Wild Hunt came by...Sommun's angered th' Wanderer." Sabin sounded as shaky as Drake felt. The thunder of hooves and howls drew closer, and Drake sat against the wall, swallowing hard. "They're movin' fast...Faster'n I recall ever hearin' 'em go..." Drake flinched as the mob of hunters thundered past the lodge, shaking the entire building. Sabin's eyes grew wide, and he went pale.

Several bloodcurdling screams came from where the bonfire had been made Drake flinch again, and cover his ears in an attempt to block out the screams, though they still pierced the air through the thunder of hooves. Sabin couldn't stand the screams for very long, either, though those screaming thankfully stopped after a few moments.

Sabin was shaking by now, his blue eyes wide in an ashen face. Drake could only guess that he'd never been around when someone tempted fate and didn't flee the Wild Hunt. He'd heard the legend of the Wild Hunt even back on Earth, though he'd never encountered it before. Even before coming to Gaia, he likely wouldn't have tested that particular legend.

The mob of riders swept away, leaving the village eerily quiet. Drake's ears rang from the sudden silence, and slowly, slowly, he adjusted back to the quieter volume. He closed his eyes to calm himself down by identifying every sound.

A baby cried, likely in one of the other lodges. A pair of crows squawked at each other. The soft pad of wolves, likely coming to investigate the village now that the Hunt had swept through. Perhaps they were given the bodies of those that hadn't heeded the legends as tribute?

The clip-clop of hooves froze Drake's mind again until he reminded himself that there were horses in the stable. A pair of them likely slipped out, seeing as he could hear eight hooves. The archer slid his hand under his armor to grab his Stellazio for comfort. Everything was fine. The Hunt had gone past already. There was nothing to fear. The only ones that had fallen victim to the Hunt were the pale man and his few followers.

The hooves moved from where Drake could still hear the bonfire coming nearer to the lodge that Drake and Sabin were in. Sabin looked pale and about to puke, and was shaking. Drake wasn't imagining the pair of horses outside. Not if Sabin was reacting so strongly.

Drake's eyes snapped open, his breath leaving him all in a rush. A deep voice seemed to reverberate in his head, battering all thought aside. He couldn't even think to look to Sabin to see if he had the same reaction to the voice.

"**Hound, come forth."**

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

**End Note:** The song sung in this chapter is called March of Cambreadth, by Heather Alexander. I highly suggest going to listen to it.


	14. Muninn

**Authoress' notes:** Augh, sorry for taking so long! DX Holiday season started, so I'm sort of off and on busy. Not to mention a little stuck at certain points.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything except for Drake/Wolfe and any other OCs that I may have scattered in there. If a character isn't from a Final Fantasy game, chances are, it's an OC.

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Chapter 14: Muninn

"**Hound, come forth."** Sabin flinched at the voice, as if he had been suddenly doused in ice-cold water. That wasn't how Drake had reacted, though. The archer's face was deathly pale, his grey eyes dark and glossy, as if he couldn't see a thing.

Before Sabin could get to his side, the archer had stood, moving as if he were a puppet on strings, and unbarred the door to walk out. The warrior of the mountains tripped over his own feet and crashed to the ground with a curse for the alcohol he'd ingested. There was only so much that battle-readiness could do. In the end, he still was truly quite drunk.

He did get to the doorway, though, pausing in his fear of the Wild Hunt for only a moment before he staggered through, careful to look at the ground for the most part as he looked for the archer to drag him back inside.

The slender man was kneeling in front of a man on a horse, his head bowed. Something about the horse made Sabin slightly curious, though. There was something about it that was...wrong. It took him several moments to realize that the horse had too many legs.

"**Loyal hound...You've become quite the hunter. The Huntress herself has favored you. You have served her well. You have served me well."** Sabin swallowed hard, unable to force himself forwards as he looked at the man- he dared not look at his face. He knew who had called Drake. Odin himself stood before the tiny lodge. The man didn't even seem to aknowledge Sabin's presence, his eyes on the slender archer. **"You saved me from having to answer the call of a woman corrupted by greed. A woman not the Summoner whom I blessed. Were it not for your interference, I would have been forced to turn my blade on the Maiden."** Sabin shivered slightly.

At least two of the Constellato were worshipped as gods. Cleyra was referred to as the Maiden. Maria of Lindblum was the Huntress, also called the Mother. Who the Crone could be, Sabin didn't know. Sabin truly didn't want to know, as the Crone usually signified death. To him, at least.

"**For this service rendered, I have payment."** The horse shifted slightly as a pair of wolves padded up to it. Two crows cawed suddenly as they swooped to land lightly on the backs of the wolves, and then fell silent.

"**The coin of life spins, glints, falls.  
As the coin drops, two sides meet."**

Sabin frowned as Drake's body stiffened slightly. The monk kept his mouth shut, though, as he saw one of the wolves eyeing him as if he'd make a tasty treat. He knew the legends, and didn't want to chance anything he hadn't already.

"**The two sides meet, a fire is born."**

Drake cringed slightly, and Sabin could see even from where he was that the man's face was contorted in pain. Sabin clenched his hand into a fist to keep himself from running over to see what was wrong. The monk certainly couldn't see anything wrong with him.

"**The fire forges, melds the two.  
The hourglass falls, time is nothing.  
Coin, and hourglass...The two become one."**

Odin's words dropped with a certain amount of finality, and Drake crumpled, his hands gripping his head. The horse and wolves turned and left the village. Sabin gasped for breath, not aware he'd been holding it, and stumbled to Drake's side, turning him over. The man was unconscious, but definitely in pain. It was much worse than when Drake had collapsed earlier in the day.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Where was he? _Who_ was he?

Images flashed in front of him through the darkness, voices called names. Fire, dancing bright before his eyes. Vivid greens, pinks, reds, purples, and blues, too vivid to be found in nature, zipped past him.

Drake? Wolfe? Kole? Which was he?

"**The coin of life spins, glints, falls."**

From the images came a mirror. Large, ornate gold created the frame. He stepped forwards, an image doing the same from the other side of the silvered glass. He lifted his hand and pressed it against the glass. The other did the same.

He studied the man. Tall and lean, without being gangly, he had tanned skin. His eyes were dark gray. Dark brown hair was in flux, now long, hanging on either side of his face and dripping, tied back, short and spiked, now combed back neatly before growing long again. Clothing was similarly changing constantly, too fast to register. For a moment, he glimpsed a strange sight, which became a ghostly overlay to the constant change.

Dark brown hair was braided back along the temples, holding a pair of ornate carved antlers, with wooden leaves attached to the horns by the most delicate of stems. The barest glimpse of twine proved the hair wasn't the only thing keeping the decoration on. Bare skin was painted with a dark blue, creating an eerie pattern that looked as though the shadows of a tree had frozen in place upon him. Lean muscles were accentuated by the lack of clothing; all that covered the man was a loincloth, leather and as ornate as the antlers.

"**As the coin falls, two sides meet."**

His eyes widened. His hand was sinking through the glass. It didn't hurt, though the shadow image didn't look too surprised, turning his head to consider his hand as it slowly slid into the thick glass.

"**As the two sides meet, a fire is born."**

Fire erupted around the two. He yelled now, the fire melting the glass. It was hot, melting, but...it didn't burn him. The Other stood free of the mirror, slowly becoming more opaque. The fire swept back away from the two, forming a circle around them.

"**The fire forges, melds the two."**

The fire now swept towards them. Each of them turned to face the fire, backing up away from it. He could see his own clothing now, as it singed off of him from the fire. Dark blue pants covered his legs, with a gray sleeveless top over top of it. Any shoes he may have been wearing were obscured by the smoke.

He was in pain. Not only could he feel the pain from his own body, but he could feel the Other's pain as well. His back was against the Other's, and he could feel the pain coming through from him as clearly as if it was his own. Or...was he both himself and the Other? Who was he? The voices called again, Kole, Wolfe, Drake.

"**The hourglass falls, time is nothing."**

The pain stopped. The fire stopped. He was in the dark again. There were no flashes of memories to pain him, no mirror, no lights. No voices to answer him when he asked who he was.

He could think. His thoughts were no longer drowned out by the memories, by the voices. There was no Other, just him. He couldn't move. He couldn't move, but he wasn't in pain. Was he dead? No, he couldn't be. The dead can't think.

"**Coin, and hourglass..."**

Who spoke? He couldn't speak, so whose voice was that?

"**The two become one."**

The images came back, but not the pain that he'd felt when he'd seen them. Image after image, nature and city, rushed past him, around him, and then into him, leaving him once more in the dark.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Zidane sat up with a slight gasp. His heart was racing. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about, but he still somehow knew it had been something to do with Drake.

He'd been sleeping fitfully, worried about the archer. He was just about to give up on sleeping for the night. His mind was just too troubled by what he didn't know about what had happened to Drake. They all were. Even Vivi had had a hard time falling asleep.

The monkey-tailed thief got out of bed and walked over to the window, leaning on the sill as he looked up at the twin moons. The two moons were set differently in the sky here. The farther moon looked like it could be completely hidden behind the other if the time of year was right. He'd never seen the like on the Mist Continent.

"Zidane? What's wrong?"The theif flinched a little as he heard Dagger's voice. He turned to look at her, and smiled a little as he saw that she was still in bed.

"Nothing. I'm just having a hard time sleeping." Go back to sleep. You need the rest. Zidane wanted to say that to her, but he felt he'd be overstepping his bounds. He really did worry about her, seeing as she was a princess, and unused to such rigorous travel.

And the travel was indeed taking its toll on her. In the sunlight, he could see a few faint freckles on her face, though he felt that they gave her a certain amount of charm. No doubt any tender noble maiden of Treno would have a screaming fit if they developed such faint freckles, but if Dagger had noticed them, she hadn't kicked up a fit. Nor did she react to bugs as most girls did.

"You're worried about Drake." Zidane sighed a little, tapping his hands on the windowsill. He stiffened at a distant sound, and just about fell out the window as he leaned out, looking at the cliff on the side of the town they wanted to head towards. "Z-Zidane!" The thief was yanked back inside, well out of sight of the large group of..._some_thing that howled and screamed its way across the cliff.

A similar howl was kicked up from the dwarves, everywhere where they slept. Quina and Vivi woke up almost immediately, and Zidane shut the shutters, his eyes wide. The man was shaking as he locked the shutters and backed away, swallowing hard.

"Wh-what was that...?" The dwarven innkeeper burst in, and slouched with a sigh of relief as she saw that the shutters were closed.

"Ach, ah thought th' Wild 'Unt wouldae taken ye, seein' as ye dinnae ken th' legends." Dagger clasped her hands close to her chest, her eyes worried, and her face extra pale in the light of the candle the innkeeper had brought.

"Wild...Hunt...?" The dwarf nodded, her face grim. Zidane glanced to the shutters, suddenly feeling ill.

"Aye. Tae see th' Wild 'Unt is tae be cursed tae join't. We be blessed that none of oor kin be out o' Conde Petie." Zidane sat down hard, feeling much more ill. Dagger turned to look at him, also looking paler. She then turned back to the innkeeper.

"Thank you for explaining. I believe we all will try to get what rest we can. We'll be leaving in the morning." The innkeeper nodded to Dagger, and backed out of the room. Vivi whimpered on his bed, and Dagger stumbled to his side, hugging him to calm him down. They were all quiet, even Quina.

"...Drake's out there." Zidane, when he finally spoke, had a rough voice. He was also muffled, as though he had a hand over his mouth to keep from being ill. Dagger swallowed hard as well, the idea of Drake being swept up by that mass of screaming people making her feel ill to her stomach.

"He's...He'll be alright. His memories have been returning. He'll know how to react." She didn't sound too sure, but her words were what they all needed to hear, just to set their minds at ease.

Vivi was the first to return to sleep, and Dagger slipped into her own bed after she was sure he'd stay asleep. None of them slept deeply after the midnight screams.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Zidane sighed as he padded back to the store in the morning, looking a bit more haggard than he would have had he known where Drake was. He paused, rocking back on his heels as he saw another non-dwarf at the store. The grocer was addressing it with a friendly smile.

The black mage turned, and jumped as it saw Zidane before quickly gathering up the gil that the dwarf had paid it for the goods it had apparently sold. It then dashed out of the area, pushing past Vivi. The young black mage fell down, twisting to stare after the bigger black mage. Zidane also blinked, completely confused by what he'd seen.

Didn't the black mages...act like they had no mind? Yet this one had definitely acted like it had emotions. It had acted afraid to see Zidane. Maybe Vivi wasn't the only of his kind that learned to think!

The boy dashed out the door after the mage, and Zidane scrambled to his feet with a mental curse before following. His empty stomach was banished from his mind. The boy was faster than he thought, and Zidane soon lost him around a couple of corners.

"Zidane, what's going on?" The blonde turned to look at Dagger, who was looking heavily confused. Zidane growled a little under his breath, and turned to look at where he thought Vivi had gone.

"I have no idea, but we gotta catch up with Vivi!" He started to run again, and Dagger followed close by. They all had their packs on them, thankfully, So if the dash to find Vivi led them clear out of Conde Petie, they wouldn't have to worry about coming back to grab their bags.

They finally caught up with the boy all the way at the entrance to the settlement. Much to their surprise, Quina was there as well. The black mage, however, wasn't. Zidane took a few gulps of air before he judged his ability to talk returned. Conde Petie was such a dusty place, and the plants growing all over the rocks didn't help. In a distant part of his mind, he judged that one good earthquake, one that would actually affect the bridge, would send this whole place to the canyon below.

"Vivi, where's the black mage?" The boy shook his head, not even turning to look at Zidane. The monkey-tailed man turned to look at Dagger, seeing that she was in conversation with Quina.

"He ran away." Zidane sighed a little at Vivi's answer scratching the back of his head, as he looked past the boy's hat to the bridge to the plateau.

"Huh. Where the heck did he come from? Has Brahne found us?" A voice in the back of Zidane's head, one that sounded suspiciously like Drake, said that the queen thought the dolls incompetent, and would never trust them with getting supplies for her army. Zidane had to admit that the voice had a point.

"Do ye ken the Pyntie-Hets?" Zidane and Vivi both looked at the dwarf that had both greeted them and chased Drake off. Zidane had a frown on his face. As soon as they were out of Conde Petie, he wasn't planning on coming back to chat with any of the dwarves.

"Huh? Did you just say Pointy-Hats?!" A glance to Vivi showed that the boy had a gloved hand on his hat. The dwarf shook his thick head.

"Nay, Ah said Pyntie-Hets! They often come from the Sootheast Forest tae trade wi' us."

"They!? You mean there's lots of them? And...they live near here?" Zidane glanced to Dagger, and she nodded to him. A potential second settlement would be much easier for them to handle, even if it was full of black mages. Drake might have even made his way there.

"Aye! But ye gots tae go all the way aroon' yon cliff an' then go east tae find the Sootheast Forest! They live sae deep in the forest, that even owls dinnae live there!" Zidane tilted his head to the side, a puzzled look crossing his face. So deep in the forest that even owls don't live there?

"What's that supposed to mean?" The dwarf didn't answer Zidane, seeing as Vivi piped up then. The boy bounced on his feet to get Zidane's attention, his yellow eyes gleaming.

"Zidane, I want to go to the Southeast Forest and find them!" The thief turned to look at the boy, and nodded, a small smile on his face. With Vivi with them, the black mages likely would be a bit more trusting of them.

"Yeah, me too." He could only hope that Drake was there, but he hoped with all his might. A hand on his arm made Zidane turn, his eyebrows sliding up as he saw Dagger there.

"I think it's a good idea. We might find some clues, and Drake may be there as well." A grumble from the dwarf meant a glare was pointed towards him from the princess, and he shut up.

"If possible to try new food, anywhere fine." Zidane smiled a little at Quina's comment, and nodded. A glance around to make sure that everyone had everything, and he turned to look down at Vivi.

"Alright, let's head to the Southeast Forest." He'd only been heading to the store that last time to make sure he didn't forget to buy anything, so his pack was the heaviest. He'd managed to get a bit more food for the lot of them, so they'd last until they got to the forest.

He started to walk down the bridge to the plateau, sparing a single distasteful glance for the dwarves that had forced Drake to run and be on his own in the strange wilderness.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~~.~*~.~*~.~

Zidane sighed as he looked up at the stars. He was laying on his back outside of the tent that the other three were in. He was supposed to be standing watch, but he couldn't see well in the dark, so he might as well just listen carefully. The cookfire was barely embers now, a faint glow under the ash.

The thief's eyes were on the stars high above. He didn't know any of the constellations, so he was just trying to make some up on his own. It wasn't as easy as he thought it'd be. He always figured that the ancients had just decided that a certain set of stars looked vaguely like something and made up a story about it, but he couldn't figure out what any given clump looked like.

Quina came out partway through the night, and Zidane nodded to him/her before going into the tent and falling asleep himself. Something Drake had done that made an awful lot of sense was setting shifts so that everyone got to sleep at least somewhat.

Zidane was still the first one up the next morning, and prodded the cookfire back into life before setting some of his trail rations to warm. Quina was up next, but didn't do any cooking. Zidane had somehow managed to explain to the Qu about eating only a small amount to make sure that what you carry lasts as long as possible. Then again, maybe the Qu figured that out on his/her own, on his/her way back from Cleyra.

Dagger and Vivi were up shortly, as soon as the sun started to peek into the tent, so Zidane collapsed the tent, which he'd had to buy in Conde Petie because Drake had had their original one, and put it in his pack. Vivi and Dagger ate quickly, and Zidane checked how much water they had. Unless they found a water source in the next couple of days, they were in deep trouble.

Somehow, they were actually able to make it all the way to the southeast forest before nightfall, though Zidane cheated a little by finding a path down from the cliffs into the dead forest. If Drake could do it on a nearly-vertical cliff face, they could do so with a steep switchback trail.

Zidane jumped as he heard an owl, and looked up to see the bird flying overhead. He stopped and sighed as he looked around, frowning at the dead, drought-damaged forest. The ground underneath was so dried that there were cracks spreading across the dirt in a pattern. The path he'd been leading the others down for the past half an hour split just ahead, and many sets of signposts, most of which were rotting or cracking from the heat.

He walked up to the newest set of signposts and leaned close to read the cracking, fading paint. Each of the two signs were arrow-shaped, pointing down each path. One said 'where there are owls', and the other said 'where there are no owls'. Zidane blinked and lifted his eyes before shrugging with a slight smile and waving to the others as he headed down the path that was marked with the sign 'where there are no owls'.

Ten minutes later, they were back at the exact same fork, and Zidane looked highly confused. He stood before the signs, his arms crossed and starting to look frustrated. Dagger was standing next to him, wiping sweat from her forehead.

"I know it said that there were no owls that way..." Vivi started to head down the path that the no owls sign pointed to, and Zidane sighed slightly before following. Quina was just plodding along like normal, as if they weren't totally uncertain of where they were going.

It was nearing nightfall when they finally got through the forest. They'd encountered dozens of huge round owls that Dagger said were called Zemzeletts. Zidane's face was looking a bit red from how long they'd apparently been going around in circles, And he'd taken his anger out on the monsters that tried to attack them. Even the flying mushrooms that had ambushed them were no match for the thief's anger.

Zidane grabbed Vivi and Dagger and hauled them behind a dead tree stump suddenly, and pointed at the black mage they'd been following since Conde Petie. As they watched, the mage lifted his hands in the middle of a sandy clearing. Dagger gasped as the air rippled, and then parted, changing the dead forest in front of the mage into a lush green one. Zidane let go of Vivi, who charged after the mage, and glanced back to make sure that Quina was still with them before chasing after the boy himself.

The thief paused only once at the edge of the green forest to look back. He did so in time to see the magic barrier re-form itself. That was why they'd spent so long getting through the forest! The black mages had created intricate spells to protect themselves! This was so far and away different from how he'd seen black mages act on the Mist Continent that he couldn't help but shiver.

As soon as he stepped into the forest, Zidane could feel a drastic difference in the temperature. He sighed with relief and rubbed the back of his glove over his forehead to wipe away sweat. He noticed Dagger doing the same, though Vivi didn't seem to notice any temperature change.

Screams from the black mages as they noticed the visitors made Zidane blink. Were they all really terrified of them? One of them tripped in his haste to get away, the pointed hat barely flopping on the mage's head.

"W-wait...!" Poor Vivi had tried to get their attention, but the mages simply weren't listening. Zidane sighed a little as he stepped forwards, cringing a little as he stepped into a patch of sunlight. A glance towards his arms told him that he was getting sunburnt. He'd have a hard time sleeping that night. The young black mage turned to look at Zidane, who had turned to stare at one of the houses. "Did you see them!?" The boy sounded extremely excited, like a child at a fireworks show.

"Y-yeah..." The thief was still a bit weirded out about how the mages were so different from the ones he'd seen. Now he was feeling bad about all the mages he'd killed in the war, back on the Mist Continent. If Drake felt this way about the mages back when he started to fight in Gizamaluke's Grotto, no wonder he went through battle shock. The mages weren't just puppets...they were people.

"They were talking! There ARE others like me!" Vivi seemed to be barely able to sit still. In fact, as Zidane watched, he dashed off to find one of the other black mages. Dagger, who had been looking at some of the plants, finally walked up the trail to where Zidane was.

"Why would anyone build a village in the middle of a dying forest...?" Zidane shrugged, looking over the houses again. The mages seemed to like circles, as each house was circular in design, with a wide walkway around each, each connected to its neighbor, and with broad roofs that shed plenty of shadows onto those who chose to walk on those walkways.

"Beats me..." And such strange windows...They looked like smiley faces. There was a stump with an axe embedded into it near the entrance, so someone had likely been chopping wood at some point. Mushrooms grew clear in the sunlight not too far from one of the houses, so Zidane figured that a tree had recently been cut down, which had shaded that spot.

"Where's Vivi?" Zidane automatically pointed, not noticing how worried Dagger was. She started to trot after Vivi before Zidane even got a chance to finish his sentence.

"He went that way, but I...hey!" Zidane groaned a little as he realized that the princess had run off. He planted his face in his palm as he heard Quina's announcement from behind him.

"A village! Village always have good food! I go find!" Zidane lifted his head to look at the Qu as s/he trotted in the opposite direction that Dagger took. The thief sighed and shook his head before glancing up at the sky.

"Geez, you people..." Zidane huffed a bit and started towards the nearest house, deciding to take a good look around for himself. As he'd thought, there was plenty of thought put into how the buildings were constructed, though some of them weren't as put together as well as the others. They looked a little older than the rest, too.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake sighed as he allowed the headwoman and her assistant to poke and prod him more, tapping his bare foot in patient aggravation. Edgar and Sabin were snickering at him. Since he'd woken at midday with a horrid headache, he'd been asked dozens of questions and poked in even more places and had incense waved around him. His nose twitched in a need to sneeze, but he'd managed to avoid doing so so far.

"Yes, I'm sure," he said, his tone that of forced politeness. The headwoman chuckled a little at his barely controlled exasperation. "My memory was blocked by something, which the Wanderer _un_blocked. How many times do I have to tell you things that only I would know, anyhow?!" Drake closed his eyes and bit the tip of his tongue, forcing himself to calm down. It was nearing nightfall, and neither woman could agree that he was truly well yet.

"Ach. 'E's been patient enough. Let 'im 'ave some food!" Drake sent a grateful look to Sabin, who had been nursing a mug of headache tea all day long. He'd given a mug of it to Drake as soon as he woke up, and it had gotten rid of the archer's headache as if it hadn't ever been there in the first place.

The headwoman, Wolfe's mother, turned to scowl at Sabin, who merely grinned impishly at her. Edgar covered a laugh, taking a moment from carving to rub at his nose with the back of his hand. Drake still saw the flash of his teeth, though. Sabin had a small smile that seemed to be permanent on his face, ever since he found out why Drake had collapsed the night before.

The young man was dressed in nothing but his trousers. He was missing his bracer and glove, of course, seeing as his glove was completely ruined. He held it in his hands as he'd been poked and prodded, trying to see if he could salvage it at all. His blood had ruined the leather completely.

"If'n ye're so sure've 'im, ye'll be'n charge o' him fer th' night!" Sabin snorted a little, and stood, downing the last of his tea. Drake suddenly noticed just how tall his friend was. Edgar and Sabin, for all they were siblings, couldn't be more different. Edgar was almost half a head shorter than his younger brother.

"Aye, Ah'll keep an eye on 'im. 'E's lookin' much better'n he did when Ed an' me found 'im on the trail." Drake tilted his head from side to side to crack his neck as he stood, grabbing the shirt that the headwoman had made him take off to examine his ouches.

"I'm feelin' much better, too. M'head's clearer than it's been in weeks." The archer rapped a knuckle on his temple, a crooked smile on his face. "I'm feelin' better, Ma, really." Drake spotted the shocked look on the headwoman's face as he tugged the shirt over his head, though it was gone by the time he'd gotten the garment settled. "If I weren't, I'd say's much."

"C'mon, Drake, I wager there's plenny' a pretty girls wantin' t'steal ya away from me'n Sabin for a reel or two." Drake chuckled a bit at Edgar's comment, and slid out of the lodge to take a deep breath of the mountain air. He could feel the difference in how thin the air was, though it didn't affect him nearly at all.

The bonfire was built in the same place it had been the night before, though there were more people that had arrived during the day. The colorful tents were pitched everywhere possible, leaving the village with a festive flair, and the lodges feeling a bit dingy in comparison. Sabin sniffed at the air like a great big dog, and waved for his brother and friend to follow as he wove through the throng of people.

Already there was music playing, drifting through the air. The scent of cooking meat reached Drake's nose, and he grinned, a bounce starting to appear in his step. The air of festivity was thick in the air, making smiles and laughter more contagious than ever.

Once they rounded a particularly large tent, Drake's eyes lit up. Under the twilight sky, young men and women were dancing in intricate patterns of linked hands. To the side of the dancing was a set of smaller fires, from which the scent of cooking meat was coming. Sabin led the hungry trio to the cookfires, and Drake joked a little with a few folks, glad to see that no one was treating him quite like an outsider.

Several men that looked like they were from other villages bore various weapons. Drake was glad to see that bows were rather predominant for men his age. For the most part, the bows looked as though they were made out of ash wood or oak, and fashioned in the longbow style. There were no expert bowyers in these mountains. Not to the level that Drake had expected, casting through his memories. That, more likely than not, was a sign of his changed view of the world. Many young men were gathered around the cookfire, waiting for the meat to be parceled out.

It was amongst these men that Edgar, Sabin, and Drake mingled. A few young men gave passing glances to Drake before turning back to their conversations. Drake eventually found a group of archers, and introduced himself. Several eyes flicked to the bright pink scar on his left forearm.

"Hoo, that's quite the mark. How'd y'get it?" The archer held up his left arm to let the nearest of the group to run his fingers over the smooth skin. The others leaned in, just as curious.

"M'bow broke as I drew it back. It was fair recent, just a couple o' weeks past." The archers around him all winced and whistled. "I was lucky to have a powerful healer nearby t'heal me up." He turned his hands palm up, showing the pink, healing skin there. "M' ma was able to heal these up after I wen' skiddin' down a cliff." Now there were hisses of sympathy.

"Y'didn' use a potion? Most trav'lers've got those on'm." Drake nodded, and carefully stretched his hands. The small amount of scar material on his hands, which he knew would fade eventually, stretched almost painfully. Dagger would be able to work wonders on his hands, he knew, once he saw her again. She'd fixed his arm up to the point where it barely hurt and the scar material was as supple as the skin around it.

"Aye, I did. Got rid o' all th' ill in m'hands afore Ma got a look at 'em. A'course, it were only t'day Ma got t' look o'er me an' make sure I'm healthy. Y'heard 'bout the Hunt come through?" The men all shivered and marked crescents on their arms, grim looks on their faces.

"Aye, we heard o' th' elders as were taken by th' Hunt, along wi' th' outsider they sheltered. Also heard tell sommun else was out." Drake nodded, and glanced at the cookfires as a piece of meat popped loudly.

"Aye. I was. Wanderer called me out an..." He frowned, a puzzled look on his face. "I can't remember exactly what 'e did. Whate'er it did, it brought m' memories back t'me." The others lifted their eyebrows at him, and he smiled lopsidedly. "M'memories were lost t'me fer bout two years. Changed m'name whilst I was gone." One of the men peered closer to him, and Drake grinned, turning to look at him. "Y'owe me a bit, by-the-by. There IS another place on t'other side o' that tunnel." The man groaned.

"Ach, Wolfe, ye changed 's little 's y've changed much. I clean forgot 'bout tha' bet. What'd ya find there?" Drake chuckled a bit at his cousin's reaction, and crossed his arms, spotting Sabin glance towards him and then Edgar, keeping track of where they were. A few moments later, and a movement of Edgar's head told Drake that the eldest of the three was doing the same thing.

"Ah, th' whole continent's full o' people! They got things there y'd have to see t'believe. Ships as fly in the air, buildings as big as a mountain..." Drake trailed off, grinning at the disbelieving looks he was getting from the others. "Y' don' believe me. I traveled back 'ere wi' four others, natives o' that land. Ed an' Sab've already said that they'll help me find 'em again. While my memories were gone, I followed 'em up t' th' daft ones as live in th' air o'er th' canyon. They chased me off without touchin' m' friends." The others scowled, dark looks on their faces.

"If y'want, we'll come with ye, an' teach 'em why they be right t'fear the mountain." Drake sighed a little and shook his head, rubbing his right hand over the scar on his left forearm.

"I've seen enough o' war on t'other continent, I want nothing less than t' bring tha' war back t'Caledonia." The others leaned forwards, but they were all startled out of their fascination by one of the men tending to the fire announcing that the meat was done.

The poor men would have been mugged by the crowd of hungry men, but for Sabin wading in and forcing everyone to back off. Drake didn't bother to get into the middle of the press. Edgar brought the archer a hunk of meat balanced on top of a loaf of bread that had been cut in half lengthwise. The other half of the loaf and another hunk of meat was in the man's other hand.

"Thanks. Almost forgot about the rush as happens when th' meat's done." Edgar chuckled, and waited for Sabin to show up. In his wake was Drake's cousin, the one that owed him because of a bet that the Chosen had won. Not that Drake's cousin knew he was related to a Chosen yet.

"Let's find a clear spot to sit an' eat in peace, least one'a th' hounds jumps an' gets sommat we'd rather they not." Drake laughed at that, eyeing the hunting hounds that wound their way through the crowds, people acting as if they weren't there.

"Aye. An' in th' meanwise, y'can tell me what m'cousin's been up to." Drake snorted a little as the group of them wove through the crowds to a group of logs set on end. A few girls sent flirtatious looks to them, and Drake rolled his eyes a little before perching on top of one of the logs.

"A great deal's 'appened. Y'really wan' me t' tell y' all o' it?" Drake's cousin nodded, his mouth full of meat. Drake popped a bit of bread into his mouth and chewed as his eyes followed an ember into the sky, trying to figure out where to start.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Zidane frowned a bit at bottom of the bunk above him. Vivi had left his cot, and Dagger was still walking around, too energetic still to lay down and try to sleep. Not that it was cool enough to sleep yet. It was still so warm that Zidane could understand why the ground was cracked. Though the forest around the black mage's village was much cooler than the one around that forest. A bit of prying had gotten Zidane the information that there was a spring that supported the forest and its inhabitants.

"Zidane...Vivi just walked out." Zidane's tail twitched a bit. Despite his worry, he pasted a silly smile on his face. He didn't look to Dagger, though. He was learning that she was very insightful. If she saw his eyes, she'd be able to tell his heart wasn't in the flirting.

"Maybe he's letting us have a little romantic time." Dagger took the flirt the entirely wrong way, scowling at him and propping her fists on her hips. She huffed at him a bit to emphasize her irritation at him.

"I'm serious!" Zidane sighed a little, his smile dropping a bit. His tail flicked again, and he tilted his head a little to look out the window.

"...I wouldn't worry too much." Dagger shifted a little, holding her hands away from her hips, like normal.

"But..." Zidane closed his eyes and rolled onto his side, away from Dagger. He stared out the window at the trees, a frown back on his face.

"He's trying to figure something out for himself." Zidane could understand why Vivi was being a bit distant. He was sure that Drake would as well. After all, hadn't Drake been distant while they were in Lindblum? Zidane knew that Drake had been trying to figure himself out. "Think about it. Vivi's never met black mages like himself before."

"But what if they're being mean to him, or saying nasty things?" Zidane shook his head, but didn't roll over to look at her. He'd spent plenty of time talking to the black mages. They were all as innocent and naïve as Vivi. He doubted that any of them had even considered being mean.

"Do you really think the people of this village gathered to do something like that?" Zidane's voice was quiet. Even though he was facing the wall, he knew that Dagger could still hear him.

Dagger remained silent, so Zidane kept talking. Dagger was a smart young woman, but she didn't understand people nearly as well as the thief did. He'd had to learn how, to survive as part of a troupe of thieves. Drake had joined after most of them had drifted away from stealing directly, so he hadn't been as pressured to learn the arts as Zidane had been.

"Maybe...Just maybe, he'll find what he's looking for." Dagger shifted, and Zidane could hear her climbing up into the top bunk.

"...Find what?" Zidane smiled sadly, glad that Dagger couldn't see him. He knew he'd seen the look on Drake's face more than once, when his friend had been allowed to think far too much.

"A place to call home." Zidane rolled onto his back as Dagger repeated the last word in his sentence. He linked his fingers behind his neck, cradling his head. "Yeah...A place where he belongs..."

They were quiet for a while, listening to the insects in the forest. Zidane couldn't shake the feeling that Drake could have told them about all the insects they could hear, and what they looked like. The archer had definitely known where he was going when he led them to the plateau. He hadn't wavered in his directions, and Zidane had gotten turned around more times than he could count.

"Hey Zidane...When you said home..." Zidane winced at Dagger's soft voice. She'd noticed how longingly he'd said the word. He needed to distract her from it.

"What's the matter? Can't fall asleep?" He forced his voice to stay light, as though he didn't have a single worry on his mind. "How about a bedtime story?" He didn't bother to wait for her answer, knowing that he was likely annoying her by treating her like a child. "Let's see...Once upon a time..."

"There you go again, teasing me..." Dagger sounded miffed, though Zidane could hear the slight smile in her voice. Zidane frowned a bit, and finally decided on which story he'd tell her.

"Once upon a time...there was a man. There was a man who didn't know where he came from..." Dagger shifted on the bunk above him, and whispered Zidane's name, sounding concerned. His voice had gone from teasing to serious, and almost a bit grim.

"This man had longed to find his birthplace ever since he was a small child. His birthplace. A place he only remembered in his dreams..."

"Why...?" Zidane smiled a little at Dagger's question. She was taking him seriously now, seeing that he wasn't teasing her anymore.

"He wanted to know more about himself, maybe. About his parents, and the house where he was born... One day, the man left the home of his adoptive father and went on a quest to find the answer." He could almost feel Dagger's excitement. She was expecting a rollicking tale full of daring deeds and high adventure. "His only clue was the blue light he saw in his dreams..."

"A blue light?" Dagger sounded confused. Zidane took a deep breath in, though he was careful not to do it so loudly she'd hear.

"Yeah. He thought it might be a memory of his birthplace. An ocean, maybe...?" Zidane thought about how Dagger was moving, and could imagine her popping her head over the edge to stare at him as he talked. He almost laughed at the mental image.

"Did he find it?" Now Zidane snorted with a bit of amusement.

"Hey, you're jumping ahead. A lot of things happened along the way. Alright, we can skip ahead...No, he never found it. How could he? His only clue was a colored light." Zidane's tail twitched, as if scolding him for dwelling on that failure. "So he went back to the home of his adoptive father...What do you think his father did when he came home?" Zidane winced a little at the memory of his reception, one of his hands leaving its spot behind his head to rub at his belly a little.

"...Welcomed him home?" She didn't sound too sure, but then again, she hadn't ever really talked to Baku. Drake would have known how Baku had reacted. The archer had done his best to stay on Baku's good side.

"No way! The father raised his fist and beat the son he had worked so hard to raise."

"Why?"

"I don't know." No, Zidane did know. He didn't know all of it, but he did know some of it. He knew because he worried about Vivi the same way that Baku worried about Zidane and Drake. "But you know what surprised him even more? The father smiled, after beating up his son!" Zidane couldn't help but smile at the memory. Baku was definitely the sort do invest in tough love, but he really did care about the boys that he raised. "Can you believe that? He just gave his son a beating. But this is what the man thought when he saw his father smile... This is my home. This is the place I call home."

Dagger shifted again, and Zidane was quiet for just a couple of moments. He had to blink his eyes a bit to keep from tearing up, missing Baku and the others. A place had no meaning for him, but the people in that place did.

"The man is still looking for his birthplace. But he already has a home. Maybe... ...It's the same for Vivi. He's looking for a place to call home." Zidane slid his gloved hand under his head again, linking his fingers together again.

"I wonder if Vivi will stay in this village?" Zidane sighed silently, his tail flicking against his pants leg. His boots lay on the floor next to his bed. The sheets were clean, and Dagger had fussed at him when he'd thought to lay on the bed with his boots on.

"Who knows...That's for him to decide..."

The two of them were silent for a while afterwards again, simply listening to the insects. As Zidane watched out the window, little lights flickered in an out of existence over the farm that the mages kept. They looped and spun like they were alive, floating here and there like flashing embers.

Eventually, both Zidane and Dagger fell asleep. By the time they woke up the next morning, Vivi was bundled in his cot under the blankets, sleeping away. Zidane arranged the boy's hat as he passed the cot, covering his face just a little more. He knew that Vivi was self-conscious about his appearance, hence why he covered himself up so completely.

Zidane wandered the village for a while, chatting with the mages and stretching his muscles. They had a long walk still. After about an hour of wandering, he heard a fuss being kicked up at the entrance to the village, and trotted to investigate. When he finally saw, he stopped suddenly, his eyes wide, before rushing forwards even faster.

"Drake!" The archer turned from the mages that were arguing in front of him, and grinned as he saw Zidane rushing towards him. The two blonde men that were with him were conversing with the mages, so they barely spared a glance.

"Zidane! I was wondering if you might be here! I described Vivi to my friends here, and they mentioned this village. We thought that maybe you'd have traveled here!" Drake took the punch to the shoulder that Zidane aimed at him without complaint, and got his monkey-tailed friend into a headlock, grinning widely. Zidane simply popped right out of it, though, and backed off to get a good look at his archer friend.

Drake wasn't dressed quite the same as he'd been when Zidane last saw him. He still had his armor, but the clothing under it was different. He wore a rough tunic with sleeves that looked like they'd been ripped off, leather pants that were laced up to the knee before hanging loose on him, rough leather gloves on both hands, along with the bracer that he kept on his left hand, and his traveling boots. His hair had a few twigs in it from the forest, but he looked clean, well fed, well rested, and happy.

"Where's Vivi and Dagger? Are they around?" Drake turned his head as if the two he asked about would jump out at random and run to greet him like Zidane had. The thief stared at Drake for a few more moments before he realized that his friend didn't look like he was in pain at all.

"Last I saw Vivi, he was asleep, and I'm not sure where Dagger went to. Who're your friends?" Drake turned his attention to the blond men, who had finally gotten the mages to agree on something. The thinner of the two was still talking much faster than the other, gesturing with his long-fingered hands.

"Sab and Ed. They're old friends of mine. Ed's the skinny one, and Sab's the buff one." Drake pointed at each of them, grinning as he noted that the brothers glanced to him when they heard their names. He blinked at Zidane as he noted the odd look he was getting.

"...Old friends? You remembered?" Drake nodded, propping his hands on his hips in an easy gesture. "So you _are_ from this continent!" Drake chuckled a bit, his eyes roaming over what he could see again. It seemed to be a habit.

"Yeah, I remembered. My people have been feuding with the dwarves for generations. That's why they chased me off. We live on the mountains, where there's more water available." Zidane blinked at this information, especially when Drake gestured towards the mountains that Zidane had seen from the highest point in the village. "We should be able to get more information on our destination amongst my kin. We travel all over the continent."

Now Drake sounded like he was getting his Lindblum accent back, though maybe it was just because he was talking to Zidane. The mage that Edgar was talking to nodded finally, and waddled off to find something as the blond sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Well, tha' was a job an'a half. Wol-" He stopped himself mid-word, sighed, and started to talk again as Drake grinned. "Drake, wouldja introduce me t'yer friend now? Proper-like." Drake rolled his eyes at Edgar with a grin.

"Ach, y'jus' like rubbin' it inta people's faces. Zidane, this is Edgar, true king of the Desert Kingdom, Chosen of the Gemini Constellato. Sabin's his younger brother, an' Chosen of the Capricorn Constellato. Still dunno which cities they be Chosen of. Ed, Sab, this be Zidane, true friend an' brother in all but blood." A yell of glee made Drake turn his head to look, and he grinned. "Th' lass there be Dagger, exiled Princess Garnet til Alexandros th' se'enteenth." Edgar's eyebrows snapped upwards as he looked over Dagger. "Th' lad runnin' alongst-side 'er is Vivi, the black mage we been travelin' with."

Dagger panted a bit as she came to a stop, and greeted Drake with enthusiasm and worry, and then Drake had to introduce Edgar and Sabin to her and Vivi all over again. Dagger dithered a little when she found out that the slender blond she was looking at was a king, and bowed after a slight hesitation, seeing as she wasn't wearing skirts. Edgar took her hand and bowed over it, smiling charmingly at her.

"Tis a wond'rous thing t'meet a beauty s'far from civilization. But I'm no king yet. My crown was stole from me by a man as set siege to the castle when I was but a boy. Our father sent us to the mountains for safekeeping as he fought th' villain. We grew there, and 'tis only recent we've tried to regain our birthright." He gestured towards his younger brother, who was crouching to talk to Vivi with a smile.

Dagger was blushing, much to Drake's amusement and Zidane's irritation. She didn't look utterly charmed, thankfully for Zidane's ego. Drake tugged Zidane away a bit to chat with him, perching on a tree stump.

"I need to fill you in on a bit before Ed, Sab, and I lead you to our village." The information got Zidane's attention immediately, and Drake grinned lopsidedly. "For one, my ma's headwoman an' chief priestess. My da's chief, an' out on a long hunt. I'll be headin' out to join 'im and hunt with 'im once we get you to the village. He'll be headin' back within th' week anyhow.

"Ye're bound t'be asked t' stay for Samhain, which starts within a fortnight. Tis a holy festival o' th' harvest. Ye'll likely hear plenty of stories about the fires. I'm known as Wolfe t' most, as that's the name I had as a boy." Zidane frowned, and Drake held up his hand. "Th' name I remembered in Burmecia? It's a true name, an' not one t'be used on a regular basis. Names such's that hold power." Zidane closed his mouth again, nodding understanding. Even on the Mist Continent, there were legends about mages causing havoc by finding out a ruler's 'true' name and controlling them with it.

"So 'Drake' is your given name now? How did your family react to seeing you again? You've changed a lot since we first met." Drake grinned, nodding to the first question.

"Ach, most of 'em acted like they'd seen a ghost. It was only after I'd been there for a while that I started t' remember much. Y' likely heard the Wild Hunt go by. The Hunter, the Gray Wanderer...He stopped in the village, an' called me out." Zidane's eyes widened, and he went pale. "Y'remember when I shot sommat out of Brahne's hand, by Cleyra? It was him bein' summoned. 'E thanked me for it, seein' as he dinnae want t'be used t' slaughter innocents. 'E thanked me, an' unlocked sommat up here as was keepin' me from remembering." Drake tapped his temple with a gloved finger, grimacing a little. "It wasnae fun. I was unconscious for most of th' day after." Zidane nodded, seeing why Drake would have said that.

"So how did you get here so fast, if your village is on the mountains? Chocobos?" Drake grinned widely, and rubbed his nose with his thumb.

"Ah, you'll see soon enough. Y'may unnerstand my dislike o' chocobos soon enough." Zidane eyed Drake, and tried to get him to explain, but couldn't. Finally, he and Drake were simply chatting, with the thief linking his fingers behind his head.

"So the people here, your people. They have a name for this continent, right?" Drake grinned widely, and slipped off of his stump to stretch.

"Aye. Welcome to Caledonia, known t' the folks of the Mist Continent as the Outer Continent."

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**End Notes:** So yeah...This chapter feels like filler to me, even with the group traveling to the Black Mage Village. I'm sorry I skimmed over Vivi's plot points in the village. I'm trying to get things wrapped up, promise! I'm just trying to get a certain chapter out at a certain point!


	15. To the Summit

**Authoress' Note:** Wow, this took a lot of effort. But, I managed to get my self-set goal done! This is part one of a double update, and the first one that I've ever actually planned!

I had to do a lot of research to get this section of the story done. I didn't really know all that much about the group that I based the people of the mountain off of. But now I do. XD

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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Chapter 15: To the Summit

Drake laughed as he saw the wary look on Zidane's face as Drake's cousin came into view, perched atop one of the horses as it grazed. The man was laying atop the horse's back, daydreaming, though he sat up soon enough as he heard Drake's yelled greeting. He waved to the group coming up to where he was, and slid off of his horse as Drake reached him.

"Cousin, ye leave wit two, an' come back wit six!" Drake caught the punch, rolling his eyes at his cousin's silliness. Drake's mare walked over to him and butted him. The archer grinned widely and rubbed her forehead, taking note of Zidane's stare.

"Zidane, Dagger, Vivi, Quina, this fool is my cousin." The man yelped with indignation, and Drake simply grinned at him again. "An' these beasts are horses. Sacred to the clans." Drake's mare, Aisling, snorted a bit as she pranced in place. "Yes, yes, ye're a beauty 'mongst horses," Drake told his vain mare, rubbing her nose.

Edgar and Sabin worked on convincing Zidane and Dagger to ride the horses as Drake hoisted an eager Vivi onto Aisling's back. Aisling turned her head to look at the boy, flicking her ears from side to side, but didn't otherwise react to having him on her back. Quina had told them that s/he would rather walk than ride.

"Ye don' need t' worry 'bout Vivi. I'll ride double with 'im. Aisling can carry more'n me, easy." Ed looked a bit relieved at that, but then again, he'd been trying to argue Zidane into trying to ride a horse. Dagger had agreed to ride double with Edgar, and was already sitting sideways on his horse. "Zidane. Just get on th' horse. M' cousin won't let y'fall."

The thief frowned at Drake, who merely raised his eyebrows at him. He tilted his head towards the horse, not budging on the subject. The monkey-tailed thief grumbled and climbed onto the calm creature, needing a hoist from Drake's cousin, Cahal.

With everyone settled, Drake hopped onto Aisling behind Vivi as Ed climbed on behind Dagger. Zidane argued a bit more before Cahal mounted his own horse. Seeing as he was the only one without an extra rider, Sabin led the way, keeping an eye out for monsters. Thankfully, the fae had learned to stay away while the lot of them were on their way to the black mage's village. Drake had kept his bow out the entire way there.

"How can you stand to ride these? They don't move right!" Drake sighed at Zidane's complaint. The archer had one hand on Vivi to ensure that he stayed put, and one hand on Aisling's reigns.

"No, they move right. It's chocobos that don't. I dunno how y' stay on 'em. Rockin' so sharp from side to side..." Zidane huffed at Drake, and yelped as Cahal guided his horse onto a thin trail. "Ach, quit bein' so jumpy! There's no horse as's fallen from this trail, far's I've heard." Drake proved his point by turning his horse towards the edge, only to have her shy back towards the trail. Vivi yelped softly. "See? They're smart."

The archer rolled his eyes and looked back to Zidane to see that he was still pale. He smiled a little, and turned forwards. He whistled a little to get Sabin to look back at him, and flicked his eyes towards a more sedate trail. It would take them a little longer to get back, but would be easier on the nerves of those who were uncomfortable with horses.

It was about halfway through the afternoon before they arrived at the village, and Drake swung one of his legs over the back of his horse before helping Vivi down and making sure he didn't stumble from being on horseback for hours. The others looked stiff as well, and Quina looked slightly out of breath. They'd been going just as fast as s/he could. It made the trip longer for those on horseback, but Drake had insisted that they don't leave Quina behind.

Drake bowed slightly to his mother as she came to see who he had brought to the village, before hugging her. He noticed an odd noise from behind, and turned to look at Zidane, who was trying to act like he hadn't just been gaping at his friend. Vivi was tilting his head to the side, though, his yellow eyes peering up at the woman that had the same nose and cheekbones as his friend, and a very close body structure.

"Zidane, Dagger, Vivi, Quina...This is my ma." Drake gestured towards his mother, and then arched to the side with a slight yelp as she poked him in the side. He turned to look at her with a slight blush on his face, frowning slightly at the vaguely impish look on her face. "As well's th' wife of the chief an' head priestess. _Ow_, ma."

A couple of snickers came from Zidane, and he bowed to Drake's mother. Dagger did as well, though Drake had to shoot a glare at Edgar as he leaned over a little to take a better look at the princess's backside. Quina was distracted, sniffing and licking the air to catch all the scents of the cookfires. Drake would have to warn his mother about the gourmand.

"Go out an' see if'n y'can't find yer da. 'E's still got nary a clue ye've returned." Drake smiled lopsidedly at his mother before nodding and vaulting onto the bare back of Aisling. Sabin had led her away to take her tack off, but she'd wandered back to Drake's side.

"Aye, Ma. Ye've 'is last bearin's?" His mother glanced towards one of the elders that Drake had seen scowl at the foreigner that hadn't heeded the legends, and he nodded, steering Aisling in his direction. He didn't see the looks Zidane and Dagger were giving him for the simple ease he had in riding his horse without a saddle. His mother noticed, and smiled fondly after her only son.

"I must thank ye for aidin' my son in 'is travels. 'E's a grown man now, where 'e was a lad when 'e left. I c'n hardly rec'gnize 'im from th' wee lad as was always fallin' all o'er th' place." Zidane stifled a laugh, and the woman turned to look at him, dark brows rising in her forehead.

"He's gotten better at that, yes, but I've seen that side of him as well. Back when he first was learning the bow in Lindblum, he tripped and spilled his arrows all over the road." A light laugh came from Drake's mother, and she gestured for them to follow her as Drake nodded to the elder that he'd been chatting up and trotting Aisling out of the village.

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Drake smiled as he sighted down the shaft of his arrow at a stag with a large rack of antlers. He whispered an apology to the beast and loosed. His arrow flew true, flitting between branches and leaves to bury itself at the base of the beast's suddenly raised head. The archer closed his eyes, a solemn look on his face, only for them to fly open at a sudden yell.

The yell startled a laugh out of him, and he warily climbed down from the tree he'd climbed, barely making a noise even with his bow in hand. His bare feet didn't crack even a single twig, as he'd left his boots back with his horse. He ducked under a branch, coming towards his kill at an angle.

Even before he got there, a bear of a man was crouching by the carcass, inspecting the shot. Drake paused just out of sight, grinning before deliberately rustling a branch as he lifted it with his bow.

"Better shot than I used t'be, eh da?" The man's head had snapped up, revealing a bushy beard and hair that was just starting to recede. Eyes the same color as Drake's peered at him from under bushy brows that started to rise.

"...Wolfe?!" Drake grinned, rubbing the fingers of his string hand. The glove he'd been given as a replacement wasn't nearly as thick as his old one, so he was having to suffer with half-faded calluses. "Gods above an' gods below! Ye're back!" The archer grunted as he was hauled into a hug, but couldn't help but smile as he inhaled the leathery, musky, earthy scent that his father had always had. "When'd ye get back, lad?"

Drake pulled away from his father a little, and retrieved his arrow from the stag's skull, checking it for damage briefly before tying the beasts's hind feet together so that he could start to skin it to bring it back to the village. "Just a few days back. Y'heard the Wild Hunt sweep through?" A glance to his father's face told him that there was no way the man had missed that. "Went through th'village. Lost a foreigner an' a couple o' elders as didn't heed th' tales." The man spat to the side as he grabbed the tied hooves of the stag and hoisted it up to hook them onto a branch. Drake was a tall man, but his father was taller by far.

"Tha' foreigner dinnae leave when I tol' 'im to? Pah. Th' gods 'ave no mercy on 'im." Drake nodded, and crouched to slit the stag's throat to let the blood flow out. "Where'd ye learn t' shoot so curst well, lad?" Drake grinned and backed away from the carcass to watch his father skin the stag.

"City o' th' Huntress. Plenty o' archers there, willin' t'teach. Taught me more'n anyone in th' tribes was able to." Drake pulled the metal feather out of his vest, and held it up where it hit the light. "Enough tha' the Huntress herself took notice o' me." His father turned and stared at the feather, his mouth open slightly. "She Chose me."

Drake's father stood tall as he looked down at his son. There was a point in time where the boy would have cringed, expecting to be called a liar. But the man before him now met his gaze levelly, daring him to let loose with the accusation. The more the chief known as the Bear Chief looked at his son, the more he saw that he'd changed, and far more than he would have if he had stayed on the mountains.

"...Ye've changed. I wager it weren't the Stellazio as did it, neither." Drake smiled and tucked his feather away, using his knife to cut the stag's pelt away from its hooves so that they could use it to transport the meat they would take. The rest of the carcass was left to the wolves, as per the tradition of their village. Wolfe wasn't the first in his line to have been named so, after all.

"Nah. T'were learnin' how t'lead as did it. An' goin' through war." The Bear Chief paused to look at his son as the boy stooped to loose the hide from the stag's forehooves. It had been several years since they had last worked together to bring a kill back. In fact, it had been the boy's first kill that had been the last he had seen.

"War? Ye'd best tell me all about what things ye've seen, lad." Drake spread the hide out in the clearing, waving the flies that had already started to gather away. He then rubbed the back of his right wrist over his forehead, leaving a smear of the stag's blood there. He suddenly looked more like a tribesman than he had, stepping out of the wood in clothing from another place.

"Aye, I will. First though, we ought t'get this venison back t'the village. Ma'll be needin' it, feedin' all th' mouths she dinnae expect." The Bear Chief laughed, and turned his blade back onto the stag, cutting the meat away. In the end, they left only sections of the skeleton and the innards for the wolves. Drake even insisted on taking the horns to use in his arrows.

Aisling barely flicked her ears at the meat that was draped over her back, and Drake led her along, having washed his hands off in a stream that he and his father had passed. His father walked with them for a while, and then left to find his own things in the camp he'd made a day or so ago.

The two of them were greeted at the village with cheers, especially the stag that Drake had killed and the extra meat that the Bear Chief had managed to preserve in the forest. They were relieved of the burdens, and then tugged away by the men of other villages. It seemed as though none of them had really trusted Drake, as they hadn't known whether or not he'd forgotten how to survive in the unforgiving mountains. They could see now that he had. His pack and boots were still sitting on Aisling, leaving him as barefoot as most in the village.

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"Drake!" The archer turned his head from where he was sitting with Zidane and the others. Surprisingly, it hadn't been hard for him to convince everyone to call him by a new name. There was a history of boys taking on another name once adulthood was reached, it seemed. Somehow, he'd forgotten about that.

"Yeah, Da?" It had taken a while to convince Zidane to go around barefoot, and the thief had complained about the ground hurting his feet after just a few moments. He was the only one that had tried.

"Why don' ye show somma th' lads from t'other tribes how ye shoot? They dinnae believe me about tha' shot o' yours I saw." Drake grinned, and stood. By now, his father had heard of his son's loss of memory, and what it had taken to get it back. He'd been quiet for a while, Drake had seen, probably trying to figure out what sort of magic it had taken to remove all the memories of his son's past.

"Aye, so long's I got a target!" The archer brushed himself off as he stood, wiping bread crumbs off his lap. One of the younger kids in the village ran up to Drake with his bow and a quiver of his arrows. "Thank ye." The girl grinned up at him as he patted her on the head, and tailed after him as he walked with his father to where a group of rather disgruntled young men were waiting. A couple of them seemed to fancy themselves good archers, bearing bows of their own and bracers to protect their arms.

Zidane watched from his spot by the fire, smirking a little as he saw his brother keep smiling even though the archers of the tribes kept scowling at him. After a while, the whole group wandered to the edge of the festivities, and Drake rubbed his hands over his bow, warming the wood so that he could string it. None of the others seemed to be taking such care.

One of the other archers took Drake's bow when he was offered it, and tried to string it. Zidane couldn't help but laugh at the way the man's face turned red, just trying to force the bow to bend. One after another, they all tried to bend Drake's bow before the grinning archer took his bow back and bend the bow with ease, the muscles in his arms standing out. The archer had taken to wearing a vest without a shirt on as soon as he returned to the village, so his muscles were easily seen.

Zidane covered a laugh as he noticed that Drake had the attention of most of the women in the area suddenly as he offered his bow to one of the others, only to have them back up, holding his hands up as he shook his head. Zidane recognized that gesture. He'd seen it a few times after Drake had started to get the hang of archery and got a stronger bow. Marcus had wanted to see how he was with the bow, but gave up after he'd had to have Drake even string it for him.

The group of archers all had a bit of a laugh, the frowns and scowls disappearing now that Drake had proven that he was certainly strong enough to have gained the Constellato's attention. Some targets were acquired in the form of several apples, and, as Zidane watched, started to argue over how many to throw in the air at once. Drake ended up putting his quiver on his back, with the fletching peeking over his right shoulder. Zidane had seen him do that before, when he was preparing to shoot several arrows at a fast pace. Pretty much the entire time they were in Burmecia, his quivers had been on his back.

Eventually, the entire basket of apples was tossed into the air, and Drake's arms almost became a blur. Once the last apple was skewered, he shook out his drawing arm with a slight grimace. Drake was still adjusting to his new bow, after all. It was stronger than the one that had broken in his hands when they were in Alexandria. Zidane swore that he saw his friend struggling a little on the last four arrows.

"Stronger than 'e looks, eh?" Zidane jumped a little at the voice just behind him, and turned to look at one of the brothers that had accompanied Drake to the Black Mage Village. It took Zidane a few moments to recognize him as the buffer of the two, Sabin. "Ach, 'E trained wi' me as a lad, though 'e dinnae take tae fightin' barehanded like I did." Zidane blinked at him, and tilted his head to the side.

"More than you think, actually. While his memories were missing, he set his bow down a few times and fought without any weapon. Kicks, for the most part, if I remember right." Sabin's eyebrows inched up, and he moved to take Drake's spot

"Kicks? Aye, 'e did always 'ave stronger legs than me'n Ed. T'were from huntin' as 'e did when we were younger." Zidane tilted his head to the side, and accepted the mug of ale that he was offered.

"Hunting? How did he hunt when he was younger? I know he uses his arrows now." Sabin hid a broad grin behind his own mug, and glanced over towards a woman that smiled in his direction. Zidane had noticed the two of them talking earlier, and both were blushing heavily.

"Oh, 'e used a bow back then, but as y'can see, most've th' archers about 'ere 'ent ezzactly the best at what they do." Zidane glanced over to the group of archers, and could see that Drake was giving them a quick lesson. For the most part, he was teaching them to stand correctly with their bows ready to shoot. "'E's far'n away better'n anyone 'bout 'ere. Our bows likely 'ent e'en up t' 'is standards anymore, either. I took a look't 'is arrows, and they're better made'n anything I seen folk 'round 'ere use."

Zidane took a drink from his mug, humming a little at the taste that lingered on his tongue. He was growing to like the layered tastes of the ales here, though Drake had warned him not to get into a drinking contest. Judging by the drunken singing across the village that he could hear from his seat, it was likely for his own safety. It wasn't even fully dark yet.

"So how'd he hunt with a bow that he couldn't use the range of?" Sabin rested his mug on his knee, and caught a roll that his elder brother tossed to him. Zidane caught his as well, juggling it a little with surprise at the warmth still in the bread.

"Stalking. 'E's stealthier than e'en me, in the forest. An' you an' me hail t'the same Constellato." Ed nodded towards Zidane, whose eyebrows rose a little. He'd heard Drake's introduction earlier, but hadn't been sure which 'job class' the brothers were of. Edgar especially had been hard to place, and until Sabin had told Zidane of barehanded fighting, the thief had thought that he could have been a knight, much like Steiner. Only more adept.

"Really? I admit, I haven't been in a forest with him, aside from on the way here, and we were all on horses, aside from Quina." Zidane glanced towards the largest cookfire, where Quina was talking with the women in charge of cooking for everyone. What they were doing, he didn't know.

"Hah. Ask t'go huntin' with 'im sometime. Ye'll soon find 'e's gone from yer side, an' yet if'n ye call 'is name, you'll soon see 'im again. All wi'out 'earing any of 'is footsteps. Nary a branch rustled or a twig snapped." Zidane's eyebrows were wrinkling his forehead a little, they were raised so high.

"Aye, an' I can do that wi'out bein' in the forest, too." All three of them jumped, and turned to look at Drake, who had unstrung his bow and walked over, grinning. "Easier t'do in a crowd, granted, but I c'n still do it." Zidane groaned a little, and Ed and Sab shook their heads.

"Aye, ye've changed greatly since ye became blood brother tae th' two o' us." Drake grinned broadly, and leaned on his bowstave lightly. He smiled to someone going past, and stopped leaning on his bow to accept a mug of ale from his mother as she walked past with his father.

"Ach, 'course I have!" Drake took a draft of his mug, and pulled a bit of a face as he looked into it. "Agh. Stronger than I got used to." Zidane snorted a little, and grinned at him.

"Yeah, but you were drinking some pretty weak ale, even in Lindblum." Drake shrugged a little, acting completely nonplussed.

"Didn't taste like much, there. I wasna' sure 'bout anyone outside o' the troupe, an' then there were th' soldiers..." Zidane nodded, understanding. Ed and Sab were just watching the two of them banter back and forth.

"Yeah, and with you having a bounty on your head for what you did while we were going through the warzone, you had to keep your wits about you even more than I did. Having the Stellazio didn't help you hide much, either." Drake shook his head, and then found a spot to sit, as someone else vacated it. Zidane noticed that Drake had his spelled pouch on him, likely to hide his Stellazio.

"No, it didn't help much 't all. E'en without it, I got plenny o' looks from lasses walkin' by. Hence why I stayed outta th' way, workin' for Sarisa in th' back." Zidane snorted, and Drake sent a look over his mug at him. "An' yes, I'm still aware she got more customers acause o' me." Now Edgar and Sabin snorted at him.

"Sounds like y'got looks there more'n you ever got looks 'ere." Drake tilted his head to the side a little as he looked to Edgar, who was grinning lopsidedly at him. "Then 'gain, most o' th' lasses 'ere c'n remember when ye were a wee lad trippin' o'er 'is own two feet." Drake flushed at that, and Zidane snorted.

The four of them were among the last to return to their lodge or tent, talking until the moon was well and truly overhead. Drake was stumbling a little, having drunk a fair bit more than he had intended. Sabin kept him from falling over, and shook his head as the archer passed out as soon as he lay down on his cot.

"'E's always been a lightweight. E'en more'n me." Edgar yawned as he stripped down to his trousers before flopping onto his cot. It was a warm night, though the skies had been clear.

"'E's got more muscle than you now." Edgar turned his head to lift an eyebrow at Sabin, who was also preparing for bed. "Heavier than you, for sure. 'Ent easy bendin' that bow of his. I know y'pride yerself on puttin' out damage wi' yer swords, but I doubt I'd e'en be able to draw that bow right." Ed sat up now, looking more than a little concerned. "I 'ent got the same muscles as Wolfe – Drake." Sabin sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Havin' a hard time changin' what y'call 'im?" Sabin nodded, and laid back on his own cot, linking his fingers behind his head as he looked at the ceiling. The cat that had adopted the lodge came down from its place in the loft to curl up against Sabin's side, purring happily. The monk gently petted the cat, closing his eyes with a sigh.

Edgar sighed a little as he watched his little brother fall asleep. Of the two of them, only Edgar seemed to be thinking seriously about their birthright. Sabin seemed more than content to live on the mountain for the rest of his life. Not that Ed could blame him. The mountain was where they'd grown up, and they knew the ins and outs of the tribes much better than they knew the ins and outs of court.

The thief shook his head, and tugged a thin blanket over himself as he rolled over to go to sleep. He could worry about his duty later, when he had won his father's castle back.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake yawned a little as he stretched, walking around the archery range. He'd had a slight headache from how much he'd been drinking the night before, but after drinking some water, he felt much better. He was up before Ed or Sab were, and almost up before Zidane and the others. They were as used to getting up early as he was, though, so he saw Dagger and Quina about shortly after he'd gotten up.

After a while of doing so early morning drills with archers that had asked him to teach them the night before, there was a fuss at the storehouse. Drake wandered over, blinking at the group, and sighed as he spotted Quina getting yelled at. He scratched at the scar on the back of his head as he walked up, resting his other hand on his hip.

"What's all this about?" More than a couple of people turned to look at Drake, seeing as not only was he the only child of the chief and his wife, but he was a Chosen, and companion to the one that was suspect.

"Y' brought a thief t' th' village!" Drake lifted an eyebrow at the elder that had spoken, and looked to Quina, who was shaking his/her head...and entire body, vehemently.

"I no thief!" Drake sighed a little, and propped both of his hands on his hips. With the sun rising, he was starting to debate putting a shirt on so that he didn't burn.

"What was stolen? Food?" The one that was accusing Quina nodded, and Drake shook his head. "Qu are very serious about food. If Quina says s/he didn't steal it, then you're barkin' up the wrong tree." The man, who wasn't from the same village as Drake, scowled at the archer.

"An' how'd you know?! If'n y'led a thief 'ere, y'coulda been fooled th' entire time!" A cross look formed on Drake's face, and he tilted his head to the side, shifting his weight a little.

"I've fought alongside Quina for a long while. I'd have known if s/he stole food." The man backed up a little, suddenly startled by how intimidating the lean, easy-going man seemed.

"What's going on?" Drake turned his head as he heard his father's gentle rumble, and stepped aside to let him pass. More than a few people backed up, partially to make room for the man, and partially out of respect.

"My friend has been accused of stealing food." Drake gestured towards Quina, who was drooping. "In all the weeks that I have been traveling with Quina, never have I known him/her to steal food." Quina shook his/her body again, tongue flapping.

"Steal food is bad! I no do!" Drake's father crossed his broad arms, looking down his crooked nose at the one that had accused Quina. The man backed up, paling slightly. There was a reason that the tribes all looked to the Bear Chief for leadership. He was a fighter that Drake knew ballads had been composed about, as well as a fair judge.

"I've had dealin's wi' the Qu afore. Stealin' food is sommat they don' do. On t'other 'and, we've got a thief sneakin' 'bout, an' no idea who it is. Drake, lad." The archer turned to look up at his father, blinking only slightly. "Take yer blood brothers an' sweep th' forest 'round th' village." The archer nodded and turned to trot off. The only one that looked confused at the order was Zidane, who had walked up in time to hear the Bear Chief's order to his son.

Drake soon found both Sabin and Edgar, sparring just behind the lodge the three of them shared. Drake paused a moment to watch his blood brothers, appreciating the difference between them. Sabin looked more like he was the true son of the Bear Chief, though for all his speed, his brother kept slipping past his defenses. Edgar certainly didn't look like he belonged on the mountain, even when he had twigs in his hair and the sun beating on his skin.

Both brothers stopped sparring when Drake cleared his throat. He filled them in quickly, and then went with Edgar to grab a shirt from under his cot. When he came back out, Sabin was waiting with his unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows.

"More likely 'n not 'tis a group o' fae, but better t'be safe than sorry." Drake nodded to Sabin, and strung his bow before leading the other two into the forest around the village. He saw that they weren't the only ones searching, but they were the only ones sent to check the forest. A part of him was proud that his father acknowledged at last that his son was a grown man, and well able to take part in keeping the village safe.

Once they were out of sight of the villagers, the three of them paused and nodded to each other. Drake slipped off first, melting into the brush and trees as it seemed only he could. Even his bow made no noise against the leaves. Next was Edgar, who was almost as silent, but not quite as invisible, thanks to his bright blond hair. Sabin started to walk, straight away from the village before turning to try to spook the thief into running into one of his brothers. It was something they had done before, but with game.

The sun was directly overhead before they had any luck. Drake had set up a few tripwires here and there, with vines, and low enough to the ground that a person wouldn't notice them. He had an idea as to who the thief was, but he wanted to make sure he wasn't just out-thinking himself. He patrolled silently, hearing Sabin make a fuss in the distance. Around the archer, birds were chirping and twittering, already completely used to the silent human in their midst. Where Sabin was, he was the only thing making noise.

A rustle and the sound of a small body impacting the ground made the archer perk up, and quickly move to see what he had caught. He glimpsed brownish-purple, and was on the thief in a moment, picking her up by her brown overalls. The child yelled with surprise, twisting to look at who had picked her up. Drake looped his strung bow over his head and shoulders before putting his fingers to his mouth and whistling loudly.

"Oh no! Mog! Mog, run away!" Drake struggled to hold the girl up as she kicked and yelled, and he turned his head sharply to the side as he spotted something cream zip away. Right into Edgar's hands. "Oh no! Lemme go!" Sabin crashed through the brush, and looked between his two blood brothers, his eyebrows rising.

"A child an' a moogle? These're our thieves?" Drake shrugged his left shoulder, and held the girl out for Sabin to carry. "Hey, you caught 'er, not me."

"She keeps this up, and I'll end up droppin' her." The monk rolled his eyes with a groan, but grabbed the girl by her suspenders anyhow. The three of them trekked back to the village, where people were still turning everything upside down. "Yeesh. Worse'n spring cleanin' 'round 'ere. 'Ow much'd y'steal, girl?" The child, hanging sullenly in Sabin's grasp, glared at him.

"I'm not a thief!" Edgar lifted an eyebrow at her, petting the moogle that was now perching in his arms happily. Drake had to do a double-take at that, but then shook his head. The elder of the three of them had always had a way with moogles.

"Explain the blackberry stain at the corner of your lip, then. We've already harvested all of the blackberries in the area. The only place you could have gotten them from would be our stores." The girl flushed bright pink, scrubbing at her face to get rid of the tell-tale stain.

"Oi! Da!" The Bear Chief turned at Drake's shout, and blinked as he saw what the blond two had in their arms. Drake jerked his thumb at the girl and her moogle. "Caught 'em." The man sighed, seeing that the thief was a mere child, and ran his hand over his face. Drake's mother, on the other hand, walked over, propping her hands on her hips and frowning at the child.

"Ach, lookit ya! Y'need a good bath an' a good meal!" Drake shot a smile towards Ed and Sab, and they both chuckled. The girl gaped at the headwoman, having apparently not been expecting to be treated kindly after stealing from them. Sabin set her down after a moment, and she gaped at him, too. "Come along, now." The chief priestess leaned down to offer her hand to the girl, who shyly took it and walked along with her. The moogle jumped out of Ed's hands to follow.

"Hah. Almost forgot 'ow Ma treats li'l 'uns." Sabin and Edgar both nodded with fond smiles of their own. They'd been taken in and raised as brothers to Wolfe when they were about the age of the girl they'd just caught, after their father sent them to the mountains to escape. "Mmm...I c'd use a wash, m'self." Sabin grimaced a little as he brushed his arms off as Drake stretched.

"Ach, we'll jus' head t' th' stream an' wash there." Drake winced a little at that, shivering a little.

"Snow melt, that. Say, th' Ride o' th' Horned Child's tomorrow night, yes?" Sabin ducked inside their lodge and returned with three towels, and tossed one to Drake.

"Aye. Ye lookin' for'ards t' the ride?" Drake pointed a broad grin at Sabin, who simply shook his head. "A'course y'are. Makes y'think o' when y'led it, eh?" Drake grinned broadly, and paused, glancing to Zidane, who looked out of breath.

"Aye. Zidane!" The thief jerked his head up and looked around before spotting Drake. "We're headin' t' the stream to clean up. Y'wanna come with? S' cold. Prolly will wake ya up." The monkey-tailed thief crossed his arms and yawned before nodding. Ed yawned as well before trotting to the lodge and ducking in for a moment before coming out with a towel for the fourth member of the group.

Drake led the way to the steam, keeping an eye out for the fae that lived between the village and the stream, though he had left his bow behind. Sabin would have had to fight the fae, had any appeared. Or Zidane, seeing as the thief had decided to bring his daggers with.

"So what's with the massive crowds at the village?" Drake turned his head to look at Zidane as he shucked off his shirt, sighing a little at the slight breeze that cooled his skin. Sabin was already shirtless, but was pulling off his trousers, and Edgar was fussing with his vest.

"Samhain's in a day or so, I told ya. First night o' the festival is the Ride of the Horned Child. Held on th' night that the far moon hides behind the near one. The young men o' the tribes all ride horses at night, from the festival grounds to a canyon on t'other side of Conde Petie, whoopin' and hollerin' the entire time ta make them think it's the Wild Hunt. Leadin' the ride's a rite of passage to manhood." Drake pulled his trousers and loincloth off before walking onto the rock that jutted out over the deepest part of the river before twisting slightly to look back at Zidane. "Unofficial record's kept o' how many follow the leader. Record's still mine." The monkey-tailed thief blinked at his friend, his skin pale where his clothing kept the sun from hitting it.

"Hunh." Drake grinned and turned to dive into the water, resurfacing to blow water off of his face. He heard the tail end of a yell, and lifted a hand to wipe water out of his face, treading water. Zidane was where he had been, and Ed and Sabin were creeping up on him, seeing as the thief was in just his loincloth now.

"What, y'act like I don' know this place." Drake swam out of the way, seeing the grins on his friends' faces and interpreting it from the practice of several years spent learning the way they thought. Zidane saw the warning signs too late, and windmilled his arms after Ed shoved him before falling into the water. Drake shielded his face from the splash and laughed, floating on his back.

"Ah, ye'd think sommun like 'im'd figure t'keep an eye on 'is back." Ed crouched on the ledge, keeping his younger brother in his peripheral vision. Drake kept an eye on Zidane as the thief popped back to the surface.

"Shit that's COLD!" Drake laughed and looked up as Sabin started to back up a little. Ed noticed the movement as well, and turned to look back at his brother, stepping out of the way. Zidane swam away from where he landed, just in time to be swamped as Sabin dropped into the water, curled up into a ball to displace as much of the water as possible. "WOAH!"

Drake swam a bit to keep from being swept downstream, and dove under the water a bit to dodge the splash from Ed jumping in. By the time he was back up, Zidane was wiping water from his own face. "An' that's why I dove under th' water." Drake yelped as Ed came from behind and dunked him, bubbles coming from his mouth as he went under the water.

The boys roughhoused through the afternoon, and eventually dragged themselves out of the water to lay on the shore and wait for their skin to dry enough that they weren't all wrinkly. Zidane had jumped on Drake's back at one point, and the archer had fallen backwards onto him.

"So, Zidane..." The thief turned his head to look at Ed, who was sitting up and stretching already. "Ye're already like a brother ta Drake 'ere. What say ya t'becomin' blood brother to 'im?" Zidane tilted his head to the side and looked to the archer, who, for all the world, looked like he was taking a nap on the streambank.

"It's a quick ceremony, an' ye'll be considered part o' th' chief's family afterwards. It's 'ow Ed an I 'ave stayed in th' village. Elders don' like us, for th' most part. We change things they don' want changin'. They cannae do a thing 'bout it acause we're kin t' the chief now. An' they cannae do a thing 'bout Drake changin' things, seein' as he's th' chief's heir. Y'won't even have a scar." Sabin held up his right arm to prove it, tracing his finger across the palm of his hand. "Dagger's a better healer than Drake's ma is, an' this is her handiwork. Can't even see't. I c'n feel it, 'course. It's 'ow Ed an' I knew Drake was still alive when he stopped sendin' letters."

Drake ran his fingers over his own palm, keeping his eyes closed. He could feel a pair of slight ridges running parallel to each other across his palm. He'd never paid attention to them before his memories had returned, but they felt cool to the touch, as if it weren't his own skin.

"...I don't see why not. Out of the whole troupe, Drake's one of the two that's already like a brother to me." Drake sat up and stretched, folding himself in half over his legs. His back cracked a couple of times, but nothing more than that.

"I wouldna be opposed to't. Sab an' Ed grew up with me as brothers, seein' as my ma couldna have any children after me. Zidane's more o' a brother t'my soul." The other three were quiet as Drake talked, looking to him.

"We'll see how yer ma feels 'bout it t'night, then. Heh. If'n y'do it t'night, Zidane, y'could take part in th' ride!" The monkey-tailed thief shuddered a little, and the three natives laughed.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake rubbed his right hand a little as he ate that night, trying to get used to the third ridge marking his palm. Zidane looked like he was favoring his own right hand, though Dagger had healed both of them until there was an invisible ridge to mark the bond between them. Around them both, people were partying to celebrate a new member of the clan. Quina was talking with the cooks, yet again, and Vivi was playing with the children, including the child that Ed, Sabin, and Drake had caught in the woods.

Speaking of the child, Drake was relieved that it was indeed Eiko that he had caught. It was better that she steal and be caught by the clan than by the dwarves. The clan had the tradition of taking in children that lost their families, after all, and the dwarves were...well, they weren't friendly. Drake's mother had given the child a new outfit, which Drake recognized from the game, and the haircut that he was used to seeing on her.

Eiko was apparently being shy around the archer, though, going as far as to hide behind others when she spotted him. The archer didn't really mind, seeing as he didn't want her attention. The girl's moogle companion seemed to like Drake well enough, though, sometimes coming over to sit on his shoulder and get petted by anyone that happened to notice.

There were murmurs going around with the adults about the child's supposed home, and Drake had caught a few of them. Many of the adults were for adopting the girl, seeing as she was living in the ruins of Madain Sari. The child insisted that that was where she belonged though, and it made some think that there were other survivors.

"Drake, son..." The archer looked up and to the right, before leaning back a little to get a good look at his father's face. The man sat as soon as he saw that the young man had to crane his neck. "Yer ma's worryin' 'bout that li'l girl. Wouldja take 'er back to 'er home after th' ride, an' judge whether or not it's a fit place for 'er?" The archer tilted his head to the side a little at that, lifting an eyebrow at his father.

"Ya trust me with that?" Drake had seen firsthand, growing up, that the tribes all ascribed to the belief that it took a village to raise a child. What his father was asking him to do was to go and see if there was more than a pair of people taking care of Eiko. Drake already knew that the only ones he'd find there would be moogles. And one bounty hunter, but she was another problem entirely.

"Aye. Ye're a grown man now, an' more level-headed than I was at yer age. Ye'll make a great chief." The man grinned lopsidedly suddenly, and Zidane blinked at the look, seeing a great deal of his new blood-brother in the man. Drake hardly even blinked. "A'course, yer totem might 'splain that." Drake chuckled, rolling a bit of bread between his fingers.

"Aye, wolves are more than most folk think they are. M'name's changed, but not m'totem." Drake glanced towards his parents' lodge, seeing the fresh carvings where his father had started to carve arrows behind the wolf. The place where the wolf was biting was still blank. For some reason, Drake expected that place to be filled with a moon, though it was more than likely because of what he knew would happen.

"Aye, but those with yer birth name are either leaders or destroyers. Thank th' threefold ones tha' there hasna been a destroyer for generations." Drake nodded, remembering the legends he had been told as Wolfe of the traitors of the tribes. One such legend told that it was a traitor's fault that the tribes had to swear allegiance to a king in the first place, instead of having their own king.

There had been a fuss kicked up when Wolfe had had to name an heir in case he didn't come back from his travels. The fuss was more over the fact that he'd named Sabin as his heir instead of one of his cousins. Even back then, the brothers had proved that they were trustworthy time and again, and definite leaders. The elders had been disgruntled because the heir Wolfe had chosen wasn't even born to the clans, but had been brought in by a blood oath. Some of the elders didn't feel that it was binding enough.

"Aye...Though it's hard to tell how th' legends will remember a man while 'e's still alive." Drake finished off the last of his food, and rested the wooden bowl on his knee, staring into the fire.

"Wi' some. Others shine bright enough tha' no one c'n deny what they're capable of." Drake turned his head to look at Ed, who was walking over with a couple of mugs and a wineskin. "Th' Einherjar, th' ones as came before us Chosen, say tha' a person like that's destined for Valhalla." Edgar's eyes darkened a little, and Drake knew that he was thinking of the battlefield that awaited them.

"An' I've been told that th' last of Sagittarius t' be Destined was th' founder of Lindblum, th' Huntress's city." The archer accepted a mug from Ed, though his fingers dipped into his vest, fingering the Stellazio that was hidden there.

"Ach. Did I ever tell y'children o' th' famous Chosen o' th' tribes?" The young men looked to the chief, and Drake could see that Ed's eyes lit up. Both of them enjoyed a good story. Drake had a feeling that Ed's desire for stories stemmed more from a desire to have an example of how to act once he took his throne back. With Drake, it had turned from a simple desire to be amused into a desire to connect more firmly with this side of his memories. He was still Kole as well, but those memories were stronger than Wolfe's.

"Y'told us some stories, but y'were always goin' out huntin' unless it were winter." Drake noticed Zidane lean in, looking eager for a story. The archer glanced around, trying to spot the rest of the group, and saw that Dagger was talking with several young women, looking a little awkward, but otherwise looking like they had accepted her, oddities and all. Vivi was playing with the younger children, playing with a ball of old rags. Quina was helping to tend the cookfires, and staying out of trouble that way. All in all, the clans had accepted Drake's companions.

"Aye. Ye're descended from th' woman known as th' Huntress's Daughter, Drake. 'Tis said th' Huntress gave 'er th' bow she 'erself used, forged o' metal an' yet better'n any wood bow." Drake's eyes widened a little, and his jaw dropped. "'Er name was-"

"Ailbhe." More than one person who had been listening to the story stared at Drake, and he flushed. "I've...met her." Edgar smirked and chuckled.

"Chosen travel t' Valhalla in their dreams, for guidance, like. An' if this Ailbhe was a Chosen of the Huntress, chances were Drake's either met 'er or was goin' to." Drake's father looked a bit miffed, but nodded, accepting the description.

"Aye, 'er name was Ailbhe. Beauty, she was. Men'd come from miles 'round t' fight for 'er hand. Legends say 'er eyes were like silver, an' her temperament like th' ice atop th' peaks." More than one person listening glanced towards the snow-topped peaks as they were mentioned. "M' grandda told me, when I was but a lad meself, tha' fair Ailbhe could shoot an arrow, an' it'd thread a needle." Drake chuckled at the exaggeration, but didn't correct his father, watching the man gesture as if he were shooting a bow, himself. "She were called on t'deal wi' th' dwarves, as such we dinnae have any trouble with.

"Ah, but that weren't to last! T'were an insult t' Lady Ailbhe as started the war. Th' dwarves worship th' sun, y'see, an' Lady Ailbhe was as th' moon. Seein' as more'n 'alf th' men o' th' tribes loved 'er, th' insult were taken personally, all 'cross th' mountains. Th' dwarves 'ad yet t' build that daft place above th' canyon, though they did so fast once th' men o' th' clans started t' stare at'm. Continued insults t' th' flower o' th' clans were enough for outright war t' be declared. We been fightin' wit' 'em ever since. They chose t' scorn th' spirit o' th' mountains, an' so they chose t' scorn th' earth itself.

"E'en th' Horned Lord took offense t' th' insults. E'en t' this day, if'n th' dwarves 'ear horses, they scream and shriek t' their god t' save 'em. Ye young men, listen well. It be this time o' year th' dwarves fear most for a reason. Ye've heard o' th' Wild Hunt sweepin' through, an' th' Ride o' the Horned Child is th' next night. 'Tis these as they fear, an' have e'en since th' days o' Lady Ailbhe."

"Aye, an' many 'ave kept th' tradition o' keepin' them content t'live in tha' place alive. I b'lieve it were young Wolfe's lead on th' Ride o' th' Horned Child as spooked th' dwarves as were it th' Hunt itself." The man that spoke, a chief from another tribe, nodded towards Drake with a grin on his face. "My own son spoke on't while all aglow. I wager 't were th' best Ride many ha' e'er been on." Drake ducked his head a little to scratch the back of his head. "Only other I've heard was more spoken of's when Celach insisted on leadin' a ride despite bein' a woman." Drake perked up at this, his stormy eyes lighting up.

"Ah, aye." The Bear Chief grinned wide at that, crossing his arms and leaning back a little. Someone got up and offered their place to the chief that had spoken up, whom Drake recognized as the Stag Chief, called so for his hunting abilities. Rumor had it that he could craft traps to kill stags that worked better than some archers.

"Well, seein' as we're dredgin' up all th' ol' tales, I might's well tell this'n. Celach was th' only child o' the Boar Chief, an' had th' skin color o' 'is wife, who was said t'ave been a dryad. T'was th' only way she'd 'ave such dark skin an' such bright green eyes. She dinnae need any paint t'blend in wi' th' forest." Drake tilted his head to the side at this, remembering when he'd been told he was second only to this woman, as a child. "She grew as a lad, an' no one would dare tell 'er t'do otherwise.

"She learned t'hunt from th' Huntress 'erself, who took to 'er on account o' her stubborn nature. Her da forbade 'er from carryin' any arrows as would harm anyone, though. So e'ery time she wen' out t'hunt, all she'd come back wi' were birds and small creatures, as 'ad their necks broken from 'er blunts, and creatures caught in 'er snares.

"Now, not all o' th' clans were friendly wi' each other in that day, so th' clans raided each other now'n then, taking horses, goods, and women. Bold Celach was regarded as a beauty in 'er own right, though she were no Lady Ailbhe. 'Er beauty lay in th' fact that she could argue a drunken man down wi' nary a flinch. Not e'en th' most obstinate drunkard would fight 'er.

"One day, whilst she were out 'untin', she pauses t' bathe in th' stream. Not knowin' that th' son o' th' Fox Chief were passin' by. 'E caught sight o' 'er an' fell in love wi'out ever knowin' o' her temperament. 'Im havin' a silver tongue like 'e did, 'e was able t' talk 'is da inta acceptin' a raid on th' Boar clan.

"Th' lad led th' raid hisself, despite him not bein' much of a warrior. Celach were returnin' from a hunt when th' raid hit. Most've th' warriors were caught off guard, seein' as it were harvest season, though Celach was prepared. She drew 'er bow, and shot 'er blunts at th' enemy...Hittin' 'em right where it hurt most." Most of the male members of the audience winced, understanding where the Stag Chief meant. A few of them covered themselves. "Aye, it dinnae kill any of 'em, but it bought time for th' warriors t' grab their weapons an' retaliate.

"It weren't all well an' good, though. Many o' th' lasses o' th' clan were taken, includin' Celach. Her in particular was knocked out so's to take 'er with as li'l trouble as possible." The chiefs, and those who already knew the story, grinned. "A'course, they dinnae have ta worry about bein' chased, when she woke. Furious lass slipped outta her bonds an' fought th' warriors on 'er own, armed wi' only stones.

"Keep in mind tha' she were only a wee lass, barely old enough t' be called a woman. Th' Fox Chief's son was horrified t'find tha' th' love of 'is life was more warrior than he was, but soon came t' accept it. 'E kept tryin' t' steal 'er away from 'er clan, an' becomin' a better fighter each an' every time. By th' time Celach were fourteen, 'e was very nearly gettin' away wi' it, aside from th' lass gettin' better at fightin' as well.

"Th' Boar Chief was at a loss, tryin' t' keep 'is only daughter from gettin' stolen away whilst keepin' her in line at th' same time. But seein' as she was 'is only child, he let her get away wi' more an' more. 'E allowed her t' hunt wi' broadheads, an' she soon proved to take down e'en 'er da's totem wi'out a scratch.

"Seein' 'er success at talkin' 'er da inta lettin' her hunt as th' men did, she insisted that it were a warrior's right t' lead th' Ride o' the Horned Child. Ye all know tha', traditionally, tis lads as take part. But there be nothin' in th' legends t'tell of which gender th' Horned Lord's youngling is. T'were this as convinced not jus' th' Boar Chief, but 'is clan's elders t' allow it.

"E'en back then, th' clans gathered for Samhain, regardless o' grudges an' raids. Celach dressed as th' lads did, for th' most part, only she wore a leather breaststrap t'keep 'er decent. None o' th' lads noticed their leader was a woman until they reached th' Corral Canyon, on th' far side o' the mountain. Th' Fox Chief's son were e'en more surprised than th' rest t'see th' one 'e'd set 'is heart on takin' as his wife, an' seein' that she'd led more'n he had.

"When th' ceremony was all'n done, th' clans erupted inta chaos, wi' th' clans declarin' that th' Boar Clan 'ad angered th' gods. It were gettin' so out of control tha' th' Huntress 'erself had t'make an appearance t'calm 'em all down.

"Until then, only th' Lady Ailbhe 'ad garnered th' attention o' th' Huntress, an' the Horned Lord 'ad been th' only god t' take an interest in th' clans. She told 'em tha' Celach was 'er Chosen, an' had been for many years. T'were only then tha' th' lass took 'er Stellazio out from hidin', t' show it off.

"Now, after all this, ye'd think that a lad would get th' hint an' figger th' lass is never gonna be 'is. Not th' son o' th' Fox Chief. A'course, soon's it was known she was a Chosen, 'e chased after 'er in a more accepted manner, courtin' 'er whene'er th' clans were t'gether.

"Four years after th' lass led th' Ride, she an' th' son o' th' Fox Chief were handfasted, an' th' two clans ha' been allies e'er since." The Stag Chief grinned widely, resting his elbows on his knees. "Though they are not th' best archers anymore, I 'ear. Th' wolves c'n take tha' honor, clean an' clear."

"Aye, that they can. An' it's been tha' way for more'n a few generations now." Drake's father sounded like he was growling a little, a wineskin that he had nicked from a passing woman hanging from one of his massive hands. "My great-grandda were no Chosen, but 'e was a great 'unter. Silent as 'is totem in th' forest, despite 'is size, an' none deadlier wi' th' bow."

The chiefs continued to tell stories, which Drake could tell were obviously exaggerated, throughout the night, drawing people to sit and listen to him. Dagger came and sat next to Zidane, which got a smirk from the archer once he noticed, and though the thief seemed to be oblivious to her presence, his tail wrapped loosely around the princess's arm. Vivi and Eiko were sitting next to each other as well, staring at Drake's father with fascination. The archer didn't blame him. As the man drank more, his stories and gestures became wider and more unbelievable.

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**End notes:** Had a bit of fun writing the legends in here. A few characters have already been mentioned, and some others will make an appearance in the future. And I realize that this section seems to have been Drake-centric, but I do kind of need to do some explaining for what I have planned for later to make sense.

**_Read, enjoy, and review!_**


	16. Ride of the Horned Child

_**Happy Halloween/Samhain/All Hallow's Eve!**_

**Authoress' Note:** I had a lot of fun with this chapter, too. The poem later on in the chapter is one that I've been mulling over since I first started this chapter. I'm glad that it turned out as well as it has, but that accent drove me nuts. It's so hard to write.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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Chapter 16: Ride of the Horned Child

Drake hummed as he ground the paint that he'd be putting on the ponies later, sitting with his blood brothers as they prepared for the ceremony that morning. It was a warm day, so they'd all decided to change into their ceremonial outfits early, though Zidane had taken a bit of talking before he agreed to, reluctantly.

The monkey-tailed thief was getting riding lessons from the other two, trying to get him more comfortable with being on horseback. The thief was tense on Aisling's back, training with her because Drake had offered the mild-mannered mare to the man. Ed was being much more patient with the thief than Sabin was, oddly enough, and the monk soon returned to Drake's side to help with the paint.

The three ponies that were grazing nearby were the ones that the more experienced riders would be taking when the dark fell, but for now, they were simply making their preparations. The horses got to save their strength for later, when their speed and endurance would be tested.

Zidane was glad to take a break when it came time to put the paint on the ponies, and watched as the three natives showed their artistic sides, making it so that the steeds were all but invisible in the shade if they stayed still. Drake seemed to be pleased with their work, rubbing the excess paint off of his hands and onto the grass.

It was after midday, and they had plenty of paint left over from the horses, but they decided to put off painting themselves until the sun was lower in the sky. Sabin offered to spar with Drake, to see just how much better the archer had gotten while he was away. As the two thieves watched, Drake fell to the ground again, and again, and again.

"...Better than ya used t'be." The archer groaned as he was hoisted up, rolling his shoulders to crack them. "Y' seem t'be more of a kicker than I am, 'owever. Understandable, seein' as if y'need to attack wi'out loosin' an arrow, ye'd be better off usin' yer legs than yer arms. Y'keep knockin' yerself off balance, though. I'll help y'with that later, if there's th' time." Sabin's stomach growled loudly, and the man chuckled a little. Drake grinned a bit and walked over to the basket that his mother had handed them as they passed her that morning. Zidane and Edgar were there in a flash, having noticed their hunger before the other two.

There wasn't much to the basket of food, much to Zidane's disappointment, but the other three expected it. A small loaf of bread studded with nuts and fruits was all they had per person, but it didn't seem like Edgar, Sabin, and Drake really minded. They tucked in with a will, and didn't even leave crumbs for the birds.

Once they were done, Drake gestured that he would take the basket back, and trotted off with a wave. Zidane noticed that his friend and blood-brother was loping along as though there weren't any mounds in the grass. The monkey-tailed thief was sure that Aisling has deliberately bounced on every last mound to bother him.

"Ye'll prob'ly wanna hang t' th' back o' th' pack, Zidane, but ye'll be able t'keep up." Zidane looked to Edgar with a disbelieving look, and sighed before stretching. "Aisling was trained t'be mellow an' fast. Unlike some horses on th' mountains, she won' try t' throw ya. Rhisiart there tries t' throw everyone as gets on 'is back." Edgar gestured towards the stallion that Drake had been handling earlier. "Far's I know, Drake's th' only one bold enough t'try t' ride him at full gallop." The monkey-tailed thief edged away from the calm-seeming horse a little.

"Aye, ye'd be best t' keep from ridin' 'im, but 'e's not a bad steed elsewise. Jus' don' try t' feed 'im 'less y'have yer hand flat." Sabin held his hand palm-up, and completely flat. "'E bites, if y'don't."

A few startled squawks from birds announced Drake's return, and he was grinning as he swaggered back. Ed lifted an eyebrow at him, and the archer lifted his eyebrows back at him. The elder of the three natives rolled his eyes, and stretched his lanky body.

The four of them goofed off for a long while, and then started to apply the paint to their bodies. Edgar seemed to have the best eye for camouflage, though Drake seemed to be next best at that. The two of them helped the other two, and Edgar and Sabin had to show Zidane how to rub soot into his hair, though he went a bit farther than that and put it into the fur on his tail.

By the time dark fell, all four of them looked like different people entirely. Edgar and Sabin had emphasized Zidane's oddly-shaped eyes and monkey looks. Drake had painted himself to match his horse, dark with a few patches of brown. He'd barely had to put any paint on his horse, seeing as the stallion was a dark brown, anyhow. Sabin had painted himself to look like a bear, and Edgar had simply camouflaged himself to look like the shadows of the leaves were etched onto his skin.

"Look. Smoke." Drake turned to look where Sabin was pointing, and grinned. He stretched one last time, the paint stretching over his lithe form.

"Great. Means the ceremony will start soon. Ed, Sab, why don't you go watch an' come back here when y'see it's startin'? Zidane an' me'll wait with the horses." The elder two nodded, and Drake vaulted onto his horse's back. The stallion's ears laid flat, but he didn't rear. "An' now we wait t'hear th' hooves poundin'." Zidane looked askance at the archer as he laid back on his horse, linking his hands behind his head.

"And then I'll have to cling to your horse and do my best to not fall off. How long will this ride take, anyhow? I'm still hungry." Drake chuckled a little at Zidane, and his stallion bent its head to chew on some grass.

"Once th' Ride gets underway, y'won't notice it. Ye'll have too much battle in your blood to." Zidane shrugged and jumped up onto the horse he was going to ride, sitting awkwardly on it before laying back like Drake had. They were there for a while before Sabin and Edgar came back at a trot. Drake sat up there, and guided Rhisiart over to poke Zidane in the side.

"Th' leader'll be by soon. 'E's nowhere near's good as Drake at movin' in the forest wi'out bein' heard. We noticed 'im movin' away from 'is hidin' spot." Drake nodded, and Zidane sighed, fisting his hands in Aisling's mane to make sure that he didn't fall off once they got going.

It was a good thing that he did, as seconds later, they heard a whoop and the pounding of hooves. Drake gently nudged his horse, and the stallion's demeanor changed. Like the stallion that Drake had ridden when he led the ride, Rhisiart reared with a challenge before setting off to chase after the other horses.

The archer heard Aisling behind him, and turned his head to the side a little. He could see, in a flash of light, Zidane's face beyond Aisling's mane, with wide eyes and a wide grin. Beyond him were Sabin and Edgar, both with the same eager expression.

The archer chuckled a little and urged his stallion to go faster, until he was right behind the leader. Drake could tell he was because of the carved antlers. He didn't move ahead of the boy, but stayed near him, moving to the side he knew was going to be right by the cliff. Better that he was on the outside than anyone else.

A lone wolf howl made Drake grin, and he waited until they were within sight of Conde Petie before sitting up and crowing. Others joined in the call, and the wolves called directly afterwards. There was no shriek of panic like there had been when Drake led the Ride, but just causing a fuss was enough.

Drake pulled Rhisiart back a little, enough to get behind the leader's horse and slip into the Corral Canyon. He whooped again as he rode his stallion around the circular canyon before slowing and allowing his steed to drink from the spring in the center. Zidane led Aisling to his side, panting and out of breath. He had a broad grin on his face, and was sitting on the mare as if there were nothing more comfortable.

"Got yerself comfy on Aisling, I see. Well? 'Ow was yer first Ride o' th' Horned Child?" The thief from Lindblum laughed a bit as Aisling bowed her head to drink from the spring.

"Ah, I had no idea what it would feel like!" Drake laughed and looked over at the leader as he rode over, flushed under his paint.

"Ye were th' one as rode be'ind me? Firm a-horse, tha's for sure!" The young man offered a fist, and Drake reached his own out to tap knuckles with the boy.

"Aye, Rhisiart's a bold 'un, for sure. Dinnae e'en flinch at bein' at th' edge. How many followed ye?" The boy blinked at Drake and looked around, counting the men and boys that were circling the canyon.

"Fifty." Drake nodded, and turned his head to look at Edgar as he rode his horse up to the spring.

"Not bad, but not th' record, either. Any lost?" Edgar shook his head, grinning. "Blessed be! All o' th' sons called t'ride wi' th' Horned Child return t'their kin this night." The boy sighed, relaxing on his horse. One of his friends called him, and he rode to see what they want, leaving a place for Sabin to sidle his horse up to the spring.

"Hah. If there's anythin' I'll miss 'bout bein' a lone man once me'n Aoife get 'round t' handfastin', it'll be ridin' like this. Nothin' matches it. No battle, but jus' ridin' as fast an' hard as y'dare." Drake chuckled at that, and turned his head as he heard a sharp whistle.

"Aye, that there is. An' there's th' sign t'head back." Drake laughed as Rhisiart tossed his head with a whinny before galloping after the leader's horse, refusing to be second to anyone, but only taking what Drake said he had to take.

On the way back, they were being loud enough to get a few screams from Conde Petie, what with all of the boys hollering at the top of their lungs. A few wolves even pitched in, howling. Drake laughed as he heard Zidane's yell as well, throwing his head back as he careened into the area around the central fire.

He spotted Dagger in the center, dancing with children and their mothers, and dressed as the tribes' women did, in a bright orange robe. The archer couldn't spot Quina, but he had to guess that the Qu was with the cookfires, not at the ceremony. Someone had to make sure that the food didn't burn. Vivi's hat was easily seen in the ring of children, bobbing here and there as he danced. A glimpse of purpled told the archer that Eiko was there as well, and not sneaking around.

A small loaf of bread, tossed into the air, caught the archer's attention, and he snatched it from the air, sending a grateful smile to Edgar, who had snagged it off of a plate and lobbed it towards his blood brother. Another small loaf was tossed to Zidane, who caught it and bit into it as the boy playing the Horned Child started the chant. Drake could barely hear the call from the middle of the circles, but he was towards the edge of the clearing.

As soon as the boy started to head into the middle of the circle for the next part of the ceremony, Drake turned Rhisiart and led the way to the fire that those young men who had announced an intention of handfasting themselves to a young woman tended, waiting for the riders.

The hooves thundering after him gave the archer quite the sense of nostalgia, and he had to remind himself to slow down instead of speeding up. He hopped off of his horse with a whoop and then sent his stallion to graze with the horses that were already in the fenced-in area. One of the young men tending the fire went to rub down the stallion, and Drake nodded his thanks.

"Merry met! How went the Ride?" Drake took the wineskin that was offered to him as the rest of the boys and men thundered in and started to dismount and take care of their horses. Men left the fire to take care of Edgar, Sabin, and Zidane's horses, seeing as word had spread of Zidane, and the Chosen were shown a great deal of respect.

"Well as could be! Nary a lad lost!" Drake bit into the bread that he'd been holding, just in time as his stomach growled at him. The archer sat with a bit of a relieved sigh, rolling his shoulders.

"Blessed be! An' it sounds as though ye went through wi' th' traditional fast afore th' Ride." Drake nodded, and Zidane huffed as he sat next to his blood brother. "Ye look hungry too. Th' lasses'll be by soon's th' Horned Child arrives." A happy whoop came from the forest, and in rode the boy who had led the ride.

Drake stood with a bit of a groan as the boy removed his carved antlers and tossed them into the fire. Like what had happened when Wolfe had led the Ride, most of the boys and men picked up the one that had played the role of the Horned Child. Sabin made sure that the poor boy didn't fall over.

Zidane perked up as soon as he saw Dagger with the women and girls carrying food. Drake nudged him, and the thief flushed before walking over to Dagger. The archer grinned before a couple of young women attached themselves to his arms, chattering at him. Edgar had the same happen, and a few boys and men took up instruments, starting some rather lively music up.

Drake saw Sabin dancing with Aoife, and smiled a bit as he watched them move through a reel that had started up. He really couldn't imagine Sabin living anywhere but with the tribes. The man was rough around the edges in the way that worked well for leading the tribes. Edgar on the other hand...

Drake snorted as he watched Edgar pull not one, but two young women into the reel with a laugh. Drake couldn't help but shake his head a little at his eldest blood brother. That one would easily fit into Treno, without a shadow of a doubt. He probably wouldn't spend money as fast as the nobles, though.

"Drake! Come an' dance!" The archer blinked as his cousin called to him, and smiled a little before getting off of his log and accepting the hand that Aoife extended towards him. He couldn't help but chuckle a little as he was swept into the reel.

His body remembered the steps of the dance perfectly, much to his delight, and judging by the laughter of the girls that he paired up with in the reel, he wasn't the only one delighted by it. It wasn't exactly a beginner's reel, either.

After a while, most of the dancers were done, and Drake took a draught of mead, slaking the thirst that had caught up with him from the dance. He cast an eye around, and spotted Zidane and Dagger being taught an easier reel, and smiled a little. With Zidane's coordination, he was bound to catch on quickly. Dagger had the benefit of having taken dancing lessons in the past, he was sure, so she'd catch on just about as fast.

"Cousin! Come, tell us what ye been up to!" Drake sighed and turned his head to look at a member of his extended family that hadn't heard what he'd achieved on the Mist Continent. The archer smiled a little and drank a bit more of his mead, buying himself time to think before he started to speak.

"_Hist ye all, an' listen well,_

_For I 'ave got a tale t' tell!_

_Far away an' 'cross th' sea_

_Tis a place ye dinnae want t' be!_

_The Mist pulses t' th' marchin' drum,_

_An' th' poundin' o' feet is a constant hum!"_

Heads swiveled to look at Drake as they heard the traditional couplet that announced a person was starting to tell a story in ballad form. Several clansmen that had a knack for remembering tales moved to sit closer, where they could hear the archer better, a light of fascination in their eyes. The Chosen smirked a little as he waited for a moment, words flitting through his head.

"_Kingdoms three shared th' land_

_Kin an' kin, and sharin' hands._

_But from north an' east there came a man_

_As turned one ruler 'gainst kin an' clan._

_A mighty queen she once was,_

_Fair an' just, an' true to 'er cause."_

A slight rumble came from Drake's audience. Loyalty to kin was one of the strongest ties amongst the tribes. For a chief to turn on their kin was asking for word to be spread that it was time the chief was deposed and the next in line placed in his place.

"_Th' foreign man 'ad a silver tongue,_

_An' turned th' woman 'gainst 'er young._

'_Power sleeps within yer lass,_

_A power that belongs in yer grasp._

_Power strong an' conquering_

_Power fit for queen or king.'"_

Drake glanced towards Dagger, making sure that she hadn't heard what he was saying. He was going to have to apologize to her later for telling the story in this way. It was her mother that he was portraying as easily led, after all.

"_An' so the man led 'er along,_

_Wi' her grievin' sommat strong._

_A king, she had, an' has no more,_

_Dead, as if t' settle a score._

_Attacked, she did, th' land o' rain,_

_Eternal power, she sought t'gain."_

Edgar and Sabin slipped out of the reels to listen to their blood brother, Sabin with Aoife tucked into the curve of his arm. Edgar had a wineskin in his hand, and a slab of meat secured in between two slices of bread. It stood to reason that the two of them were interested in Drake's tale of the other continent.

"_Carin' naught f'r the' death an' screams_

_Seekin' only t' grasp 'er dreams_

_O' rulin' o'er all th' land,_

_Holding th' tithes within 'er hand._

_Th' land o' the sky was next t'fall_

_Underneath death's pale pall."_

A few confused looks about this 'land of the sky' made Drake smile a little. He was going to have to clarify that later. He didn't feel as though he had to mention Cleyra, seeing as it wasn't completely destroyed, and the people there still bowed to the king of Burmecia.

"_But th' Huntress's City_

_Is not one to pity_

_For e'ery lass, lad, an' man_

_Has been doin' what they can,_

_Bringin' grief an' ill_

_T'the ones as dropped their swill_

'_Pon them an' their kin_

_Carin' not for their sin."_

Zidane slipped out of the reel, looking flushed and out of breath. He looked around before spotting Drake in the middle of a crowd of people listening carefully to him. He wove through the crowd, slipping under and through reels that had started up.

"_For th' kingdom o' land_

_Cannae rule from sky t'sand,_

_Wi'out sommun t' push 'em back_

_As th' gods dinnae will th' attack._

_Sae long's th' man from th' northern sky_

_Lives, chillun will continue t'cry._

_Greed is a curse not easily rent,_

_An' one for which many lives 'ave been spent."_

Drake wrapped up the ballad as Zidane drew close enough to hear, and the thief pulled a face at that fact, but accepted a wineskin from a woman passing by with fresh food and more drinks. The crowd started to dissipate, some muttering to each other about the story that they'd just heard, others getting caught up in reels again.

Zidane yawned a little and plopped down in a seat that had just been vacated, drinking some from the wineskin he'd been handed. Drake leaned forwards, his back popping as he tilted his head from side to side.

"So what was that? You had everyone's attention." Drake blinked at Zidane, and then smiled a little. He nodded towards another group that had gathered, listening to someone else talk.

"Part o' th' festival is swappin' tales an' legends. If I hadn't told folk about what's been going on on the Mist Continent, they'd have pestered everyone from our group. I figure it's better for me t'tell it than Dagger." Zidane nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

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Drake groaned as he woke up the next morning, and draped his arm across his face, settling his nose into the corner of his elbow. Just that bit of extra pressure was as painful as the light that had woken him up.

"Sounds like someone's awake." Drake groaned again, frowning. He wasn't feeling nauseous, but his head did hurt a lot. A nudge made him lift his arm a little to peer out from under it, though he groaned again at the light. "Had a bit too much to drink last night, eh Drake? C'mon, up with ya." A hand grabbed Drake's and pulled, heaving him into a sitting position, which the archer growled at.

"Here." A mug was pressed into Drake's hands, and he blinked at it for a moment, his head too fuzzy with pain from the light and all the noise that he could suddenly hear to register what it was for. "Drink. You'll feel better."

Edgar shook his head with a smile as Drake mechanically followed the instructions he'd been given, and grabbed a roll of bread for himself. They were in one of the tents that had been pitched by the bonfire that they had been at the night before, and it looked as though Drake had overindulged. Not that it was hard to do with the best mead of the mountains being given to the young men.

Sabin had drunk as much as Drake had, but had a higher tolerance for alcohol than the archer did. The buff man was still sprawled out on top of his blanket, snoring. More likely than not, his snores were doing nothing for Drake's headache but make it worse.

"Is he awake yet?" A soft voice made Edgar turn to look at the opening to the rough tent, and he smiled at the young black mage that stood there. The Chosen patted the boy on the hat before stepping past him to the fire. It had been turned into a cookfire as soon as the first people started to wake.

There weren't too many people around the fire yet, though those that were, were in various stages of wakefulness. Drake hadn't been the only one to overindulge. Dagger moved from makeshift tent to makeshift tent, making sure that everyone was still alive, and casting curative spells over those who had woken up but were in too much pain to do anything.

Zidane was sitting by the fire, nursing a mug much like Drake was. He was, however, looking much more conscious. Sabin was already moving around, delivering food to those who looked like they could hold food in their stomach without it rebelling. He smiled to Aoife as she started to help him, her hair tamed into a long braid that fell down her back.

Drake apparently recovered faster than Edgar had though, as he emerged from the tent with a groan, able to keep himself upright already as he staggered a bit towards the nearest seat. He sighed a bit and rested his forehead on his knees, closing his eyes again.

A few people muttered greetings to the archer as he woke properly. A bowl of stew was pushed into his hands by a grinning Sabin. Drake's only response was to grumble for his cheeriness and start to eat.

By the time the bowl emptied, Drake was feeling much more awake and human. He still looked pained, but he reached for another mug of tea. Zidane looked to be all the way back to normal, chatting with Edgar as the thief Chosen tended to the stew that was being handed out to those waking up. Dagger finally sat next to Zidane, looking a little pale from how much magic she'd been using.

Edgar handed the princess a bowl of stew, and she ate it gratefully. Drake sighed as he finished his second mug of tea before standing and stretching. He noticed a few women blushing, looking sharply away from him. He blinked before smiling a bit, remembering that he was dressed in the loincloth he'd been wearing since the ceremony.

"Zidane, c'mon. Let's go clean up." The Lindblum thief blinked up at him and then groaned as he forced himself up. "Ah, forgot that you'd probably be stiff from riding bareback." The archer clapped a hand on his blood brother's shoulder with a grin. "Walking'll help. C'mon." Dagger waved as Drake led Zidane to the lodge that the Chosen lived in. They'd welcomed Zidane in, seeing as the elders kicked a fit about him staying anywhere near a royal maiden.

Drake couldn't help but shake his head at that, even now. The elders of the Wolf clan couldn't decide whether to shun all the influences of the remnants of the Figaro court or to embrace them whole-heartedly. They were a bit more prudish than the elders of other clans, when it came to royalty. Even heirs of the chief weren't immune to the treatment, Drake had seen.

The two travelers grabbed their clothing from the lodge, and headed to the spring, Drake stringing his bow and looking around constantly, in case the fae decided to attack them. They weren't the only ones to head to the river, as they saw, and a cheer went up as Drake unstrung his bow, grinning at the men and boys in the river. Most that were here were from the other fires.

Drake gestured for Zidane to set his things down inside the circle of swords stabbed into the earth. The archer left his own things in a neat pile there, his bow and quiver laying atop it. He then jumped into the river with a whoop, splashing the rest as he tucked his legs against his chest.

Zidane got into the river a great deal more delicately, but immediately took to scrubbing the soot that darkened his fur and hair out. The son of another chief showed him how to take a handful of holey stone from the riverbed to scrub the paint off of his skin as Drake went at the task with a will with the paint on his own body.

By the time they had both scrubbed their skin pink, more young men had arrived, and bawdy songs were soon being belted out by the elders as the joked and roughhoused with the younger men and boys. Zidane and Drake both ended up getting dunked by some of the more rambunctious young men, though Drake seemed to mind it less than his blood brother.

The boys eventually dragged themselves out of the river, and Drake ruffled his soaked hair before he dressed himself, once again leaving his shirt off in favor of a loose vest that didn't quite cover his torso up much. Zidane dressed himself in his normal outfit, which someone had washed for him the day before. Why the thief had taken to wearing his costume from the play, the archer couldn't even begin to understand.

"So how long does this festival last, again?" Drake chuckled a little as he turned his head to look at Zidane, who was looking quizzically at the ring of swords. Drake had a feeling that his next question was going to be about that. "And why do this with the swords? Isn't it bad for the metal?" Just as predicted.

"The festival lasts a week. As for the ring o' iron, that's t' keep the fae from stealin' our belongings. Cold iron's a poison, to 'em. If y'look at the lodges, there's a horse's shoe above each an' every door, to ward 'em off." Zidane blinked at Drake, who lifted his eyebrows, seeing that his blood brother didn't believe him. "Jus' ask any elder t' tell you th' legends o' th' fae tonight."

Zidane tilted his head to the side with a shrug, and Drake chuckled a little before waving to the men and boys still in the river before heading back down the trail to the village. They waved to Drake's cousin Cathal as the young man stumbled down the path headed towards the river. He was still covered in paint from the night before.

Zidane and Drake were grabbed to clean up from the party the night before, much to Zidane's irritation. Drake, on the other hand, went about the tasks with a cheerful attitude, scaling trees to fetch things that somehow were tossed to the very tops of the trees. Exactly how, no one would ever know. The bundle of misplaced laundry was sent off with an exasperated woman, and Drake grinned at Zidane, who looked after the laundry with an extremely confused look on his face.

"It's better to not try to figure out how it got up there. Trust me, it'll give you a headache." The thief shook his head and shrugged as he trailed along after his blood brother, who was looking for another chore to do. After a while, he was waylaid by a group of children listening to a storyteller. Drake apparently lost him there, because, the archer came back a couple of hours later, looking a little worried.

Much to Drake's surprise, the stortyteller was regaling them with a tale of the Morrigan, whom many saw as the Crone aspect of the threefold goddess. Zidane in particular was listening with rapt attention. That didn't surprise Drake, but then again, he had several secrets that he was still keeping from his friends.

The archer sighed a little in his head, and scrambled up into a nearby tree to crouch and listen to the storyteller. He knew the story, but it wasn't the same as the ones from Earth. Or rather, the stories that he knew of her from Earth.

"An so y'see, th' Hound o' Meallan, as was called Faolan, chased th' raven from 'is game, furious that th' bird 'ad had th' gall t' drop ont' such a fresh kill. Each time 'e turned t' head back t' his kill, the raven would dive for it, gainin' 'is ire an' getting him t'chase it more. By an' by, th' bird ceased it's jeerin', an' a beauteous horse, black as th' midnight sky, strode inta 'is path, grazin' on th' berries an' grasses." A few mutterings from the children made the storyteller raise a hand, smiling calmly. Some were muttering about taking the horse and adding it to his clan's herd. "Ah, bu' sommat caught 'is eye. Th' horse were wet, as though it were caught in a storm." The elder leaned forwards, a mischief-filled smile on his face as eyes in his audience widened. "Aye, it were a kelpie! An' like all of ye young 'uns, 'e knew better than t' sae much as touch th' beast. A'course, kelpies are rare beasties, as ye all know. But yon came th' raven once more, bearin' a rope o' twined gold!"

Drake smiled at the story, remembering when he was a young boy listening to this very tale for the first time. He'd jumped at anything that looked like a crow or raven. Of course, it hadn't helped that he was named similar to Faolan.

"Now, as ye as've heard this tale afore know well, there be only one thing as can hold a kelpie an' bind its will to a human, and that be a rope formed o' gold twined about a core o' iron. Where a raven had gotten th' rope was beyond Faolan, an' he pulled his huntin' dagger out o' his belt." The storyteller lifted his hand as though he held a dagger ready to throw. "'E sighted towards th' raven, and threw 'is blade so's th' hilt struck th' bird in th' chest. It dropped th' rope, an' th' Hound was on't in a flash!

"Now, th' kelpie couldna help but to've heard th' fuss, an' watched th' warrior wi' eyes green as grass. Now, for some reason, Faolan paused. While addin' a kelpie t' 'is herd would send 'im inta legend, th' beast hadna shown any violence." Drake noticed that Zidane was looking confused at the parts about the kelpie, and figured he'd have to explain things to him later. "Harmin' a beast as done ye no 'arm, less it's fer food, is sommat th' gods frown on, an' Faolan knew that 's well as any. It didna do much more than make him pause, though. Quick as lightnin', he caught th' kelpie wi' th' golden rope, an' started t'lead it back t' 'is herd. Forgot all 'bout tha' rabbit 'e killed, 'e did. A'course, th' raven didna." The storyteller tapped his index finger on his nose, a solemn look on his face.

"Faolan didna notice th' bird followin' him to 'is village. It weren't til 'is clansmen started t' praise 'is capture o' th' kelpie afore any e'en noticed there was a bird 'round. T'were only when th' raven landed on th' gate o' th' corral tha' Faolan turned t'look at't." The storyteller leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. "'Ow he knew it were the bird 'e chased earlier, I cannae ken, but 'e did. Th' kelpie was turned out int' th' corral wi' th' clan's horses already, safe wi' a bridle made o' th' woven gold. Faolan turned t'face th' raven, an' shooed it away. Away it flew, but only for a few feet.

"Th' bird lit back on th' ground, but it weren't a bird 'nemore. In its place was a woman, tall, pale, an' thin. 'Er hair were th' color o' th' raven's wings, an' she wore a long cloak covered in th' dark feathers. 'Neath that were a black dress, lookin' as though it were made o' th' shadows o' death itself." Drake bit the corner of his mouth, seeing Zidane's eyes widen almost comically. None of the members of the storyteller's audience were talking, sitting quite still. Some of the younger children were curled up in on themselves, expecting some sort of horror to unfold in the story. "Eyes yellow as gold were fixed on Faolan, ne'er blinkin', ne'er turnin' away."

Drake saw several people listening mark themselves with a crescent. Drake did the same, hoping to never meet the Crone in the way that Faolan had. As it was, he occasionally wished that he had never drawn the eyes of the Mother and the Lord. But at the same time, if he hadn't, he wouldn't be where he was now.

"Th' Crone 'erself watched as th' clansmen knelt b'fore her, as all must do someday. Faolan was th' only one left standin', meetin' 'er eye. Ravens an' crows all darkened th' sky, roostin' in th' trees an' on houses nearby. But e'en that didna scare Faolan inta bendin' his knee to 'er. Th' Crone smiled slowly, 'er creased face lookin' like th' kindliest old granny in all but 'er eyes.

"'Ye're a brave young lad, or a fool. Either way, ye 'ave th' spirit t' lead yer kin t' glory. Breed th' kelpie I gave ye, and become high king.' Faolan didna move as the Crone spoke, lookin' her dead in th' eye. Finally, 'e lifted his head, proud like 'is horses, an' told th' Crone, 'Ye c'n keep yer favors. If I be meant t' rise an' rule my kin, it'll be on my own power.'" Drake smiled a little. He understood that thought completely. He didn't deny that Lady Maria's gift had helped him, but at times, he'd rather have known that he got through a situation on his own power.

"Now, th' Crone didna like this answer. 'Er smile faded, an' e'en her birds quieted in fear o' her. But Faolan didna flinch. If he hadna ever heard o' th' tales of those as dared th' gods or if 'e simply ignored 'em..." The storyteller shook his head. "Th' wind picked up, chillin' every'un t'th' bone. E'en Faolan were shakin' from th' cold. Th' Crone's cloak was still despite th' wind, only th' tips of th' feathers stirrin'. It were only then tha' Faolan seemed t' be wary. 'Is hand moved t' his sword, but he didna draw it.

"'Ye turn away th' only thing as could change yer future. Th' day will come when ye wish ye had accepted my offer. Yer kin will curse yer name, an' all those as bear e'en a connection to ye will spurn th' name.' After 'er warnin', th' Morrigan turned back to 'er raven form an' disappeared into th' murder o' crows an' ravens, which spread t' th' four winds, leavin' th' clansmen shiverin' an' kneelin'." The eyes of the audience was still wide. Drake bit back a chuckle.

"True t' th' Crone's warnin', it were Faolan as rued 'is choice. Nary ten years later, 'e led th' clans 'gainst th' desert king, an' lost. Th' surrender were placed square on 'is shoulders, an' th' clans exiled 'im. 'Tis said tha' 'e died beggin' th' Crone for 'er forgiveness." The crowd of youngers and young adults that were listening to the storyteller was so silent after the end of the story that Drake could hear the wind in the trees.

An idea came to him suddenly, and he grinned for a moment before he imitated the call of a raven. The reaction was instantaneous. Several youngsters jumped to their feet and looked around, a few of them reaching for slings. The storyteller was able to pinpoint where the sound had come from after a moment, and looked directly up at the grinning Drake. He laughed a little, and the children looked where he was looking. Drake was mostly hidden in the leaves, however.

"I've heard as well, that th' children named after Faolan's totem 'ave taken t' actin' as th' Crone would like, though I didna think that it'd go s'far as actin' like a raven!" Drake chuckled and dropped to the ground, bending his knees to absorb the impact. A few yelped, and the archer smiled towards them to put them at ease.

"I bow t'the Huntress before th' Crone, and I know what awaits me after my time comes. 'Tis between then an' now as I'm uncertain of." Drake saw Zidane frown, and grinned at him, having seen him start at the abrupt call of a bird even more so than the rest. It meant that his brother was able to relax more here than he had at any other stop.

"Aye, tis th' curse o' th' Chosen. Much is expected of us, but none can know whether or not we'll truly accomplish what we're meant to. Not even the Constellato." Drake turned to blink at Edgar as he walked up behind him, smiling with a white linen shirt that was open halfway down his chest. Drake's eyes flicked to the young women that were trailing along after him. Seems he wasn't the only one that the girls flocked after, though he had a feeling that Edgar rather encouraged it.

"And even more of those Chosen that serve the Constellato in times of war." Edgar and Drake's eyes met, both knowing what the archer was referring to. The Chosen of their time were expected to be much better than their predecessors, if only because they were caught between wars.

"Strife creates change." Both Chosen turned to look at the man that walked up behind them. Drake smiled at his father, who nodded to him. "I'd set up snares last night, after th' Ride. If ye'd like, they're in th' same places as ye were prone t'settin' em." Drake tilted his head to the side before shaking it with a chuckle.

"Have one of the youngsters check them, though I doubt that any creatures were caught. There was too much of a fuss, and far too many people around." Drake glanced to the side, and smiled a little. "Why don't you go check my father's traps for him, Emlyn? You don't have a trapping line of your own yet, right?" The boy that Drake had addressed jumped and blinked at Drake, his eyes wide. "It'll show your own elders that you know how to care for traps properly." The boy blinked at Drake more before a grin slowly slid over his face, and he nodded energetically.

"Ach, I'll have t'show ye where th' traps are, then." The Bear chief gestured for the boy to follow him and started away. The boy blinked once before scrambling along after the man. His grin couldn't have gotten wider. Drake shook his head a little, and turned to pay attention to the children that were flocking around him.

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Drake was panting by the time the children decided to leave him be finally, laying flat on his back in the middle of the meadow where the ceremony had been held in the night before. His vest had been tossed aside an hour ago, leaving him in just his trousers. The children had hung onto his legs as he tried to walk around, and a few had even been hanging onto his arms. His face hurt from laughing so much, and his muscles were burning slightly from the effort of walking with so much extra weight.

It was mid afternoon, and everything from the day before had been cleaned up. All that was left was setting up the bonfires for the night, and Drake could already see that the wood was being brought in by those who were strong enough for the task. Sabin was among them, lifting more than most, and he was being followed along by several children that were collecting tinder for when the fires were started.

"Drake, you alright?" The archer tilted his head up a little to look at the person that was standing over him, and he pushed himself up with a slight grunt before standing and turning to look at Dagger better.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Just a bit sore. I don't normally have to carry around several children on my arms and legs." Dagger giggled a little at him, and he grinned. She was a lot more relaxed around him now than she had been when they first started to travel together. She'd squeaked at seeing him without a shirt on, then. It seemed she had accepted it as a quirk of his, finally.

"Alright, good. You and your brothers seem to have a way with children." Drake glanced towards Sabin, where he was directing the children following him to set their kindling down in piles where they would be gathered for the fires later. "Though how your mother managed to survive raising three rambunctious boys is beyond me." Drake sputtered a little, laughing. It seemed as though Dagger got the wrong idea.

"I'm not related to Edgar and Sabin by blood. We're called blood brothers because we went through a ceremony like I did with Zidane the other night. They were raised directly by their father's retainers that brought them here, but my clan believes that it takes a village to raise any given children. Nor were they my only playmates, growing up." Drake gestured a little as he explained to Dagger, a light smile on his face. She blinked, looking a little startled at the difference between what she thought had been the case and what actually had been.

"It sounds as though your childhood was full of fun." Drake laughed a little, rubbing the back of his head and looking towards the lodge that he grew up in. He could see his father working on the carved pillar that marked Drake's achievements in life, from his discovery of his totem animal to how he was best able to fight, and anything else. Drake supposed that his father was trying to figure out how to portray the journey the archer had been on for the past two years. War, the likes of which Drake had been through, was uncommon in Caledonia. Skirmishes and quarrels were nothing new, but full-out war was another thing entirely.

"It was, for the most part. I was more than prone to getting hurt, though, so my mother ended up getting better at her white magic because she had to heal me so often." Dagger winced a little at that, and Drake smiled sheepishly at her. "So yeah, you're not the first healer I've had worry over me and my clumsiness." Dagger shook her head with a slight smile, giggling a little.

"You're not as clumsy as you seem to think you are. You have moments, yes, but I see you being graceful far more often. I think it has something to do with the fact that you grew up in such a beautiful place and had more than enough room to run around in, that you couldn't adjust to being in a city very well. So you keep bumping into people because you're not used to such a crowd being around you." Drake blinked at Dagger and rubbed his fingers over the scars on his head, wondering if she would blame his clumsiness as a child on growing.

"...I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree." Dagger blinked at Drake a bit, who shrugged with a small smile. "I've been clumsy for years, even when I lived here." Dagger shook her head with a slightly exasperated look, and Drake glanced towards his father again. The man was definitely carving something by now. Drake was going to have to look at it later to see exactly what. "...I think you should ask after tales of the Summoners, Dagger. I can remember a few that I grew up with, but not enough to tell them, myself." When he turned to look back at the princess, she looked startled. "That little girl that my brothers and I found out in the woods? She's a Summoner. Only, I seem to remember hearing that they were all wiped out when I was a boy. Imagine, not only do I find a Summoner on another continent, but I come back to my home and find one that can't have even been born when the Summoners were supposed to have been wiped out, sneaking around my village." Drake's eyes found Eiko where she was tagging along after Vivi, chattering away at him.

"...I'll ask tonight, then." Drake nodded, and looked sharply to the sky as a large shadow crossed over him. A Gryphon wheeled overhead, looking down at the people scurrying below. The archer tensed, wondering if he'd have to shoot down another of the great beasts when it screeched and wheeled away from the village. That made the young man relax, knowing that it had just been curious. "When are we leaving? I mean, I am enjoying my time here, but..."

"We'll head off tomorrow. I'm grateful that our travels let me remember who I am, but we do need to complete what it was we came here for." Dagger nodded a little to Drake, and then both turned as they heard their names being called. "Oh, looks like my ma needs us to carry some things for her." Dagger nodded, and the two of them headed over to where the headwoman was standing by a pile of baskets.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake panted for breath again as the song ended, lowering his flute as he bowed out to allow another to play for the dancers. He glanced towards the quieter area, his eyes finding the dark-haired princess of Alexandria as she listened to the storyteller with rapt attention. She had taken his advice to ask after stories of her people well, and little Eiko sat at her side, also listening intently.

Sabin handed a skin of tea to the archer, who nodded his thanks and drank from it as he sat down on a log off to the side of the dancing area in the middle of the circle of fires. Drake had told his blood brother about his plans to lead his friends to wherever their next destination was in the morning. He could faintly remember a conversation that he'd overheard as a boy about a silver dragon in the sky to the northeast.

"A bit rusty with the flute, but from what I've heard, ye haven't touched it for two years." Drake glanced to the man that he'd taken over for earlier, who was sitting drinking some ale or mead to slake his thirst.

"Aye. I feel as though my fingers won't move fast enough. Which is odd, seein' as I'm blindin' fast wi' my bow." Drake stretched his hands out, rolling the flute end over end through his fingers.

"It comes from not practicin' for ages. Play a li'l every now'n then, an' you'll feel th' difference." The older player stretched his own hands out, his knuckles popping softly. "Ye've 'ad talent for music since ye were a lad, though. I can remember hearin' a jig played on th' flute an' wondering who 'ad th' lung power for it, an' then finding it were a wee lad perched on a log bigger'n he was playin' it." Drake flushed a little, surprised that the man could remember an impression like that.

"An' I probably just about passed out afterwards. A jig's easy on no 'un, dancer or music." And it probably didn't help that he and his friends were adjusting to the altitude. He could feel it himself, and he'd been in the mountains his whole life, here on Gaia. Lindblum was likely a lower altitude than the mountains of Caledonia were, though.

"Aye, an' everyone laughed afore congradulatin' you." Edgar wandered over with some food, and Drake accepted what his blood brother handed him. "It were before these two brothers o' yers came t' live with yer clan, too." Edgar looked a little confused, having not heard the rest of the conversation.

"Jus' talking about how well I played th' flute when I was a lad. Not playin' for nigh two years 'as made me a touch rusty." Edgar nodded, and laughed as a passing young woman grabbed his arm and pulled him into the reel that was starting.

"...He love th' lasses, that 'un does." Drake cast a slight glance to the old trapper that had struck up a conversation with him, uncertain of how the man meant his words, and relaxed a little as he saw the wry smile on his face.

"Aye, he'll have a hard time choosin' a woman for a wife. Twice as hard as most 'is age." Drake paused for a moment. "Especially seein' as his choice has t'be approved by his da's old retainers. They aren't likely t' do so with any o' th' lasses as live here. Worse'n most elders, they are." The old trapper nodded, a grimace on his face. While hardly anyone but the elders minded Edgar and Sabin, the retainers that had brought them to the mountains were still looked upon as useless.

"Aye, but they've knowledge that we mountain folk 'ad never e'en thought of before. An' likewise, we've got plenty of skills that they never thought would be needed. How they'd thought nails an' th' like were made, I cannae ken." Drake snorted at that, a smile on his face.

"Simple. They're not used t' doin' without. Those as tended t' their every need were th' ones as knew where things came from. Dagger was like that, from what I've heard from Zidane, but she learned fast. Had to. Tha' story that I told? She's th' daughter th' queen wanted power from." The man paled, and Drake's eyes slid to where Dagger was now asking questions, looking a bit concerned.

"...Tha' war...You were in it?" Drake nodded, and rubbed the scar on his left forearm. "Gods bless that ye made it through." The archer hummed softly before looking to the sky.

"It weren't th' gods as got me through alive. It were the friends I made an' was travelin' alongside. Zidane, Vivi, and Quina were there, alongside a friend that chose t'stay behind an' guard our rear as we brought Dagger t'safety." Drake's mouth tensed a little, worried not only for Freya, but for Steiner and Beatrix as well. All three had decided to fight what amounted to an entire army, with just the three of them. While he knew that, in the game, Blank and Marcus got there in time to drag them off down the Gargant tunnel, his mind simply wouldn't stop torturing him with scenes of what might have happened instead, because he was there.

"Friends can be th' way th' gods act. Though seein' as you're th' only Chosen of yer group, I'd say more like ye are the one the gods act through." Drake chuckled a little, a bit amused. As Kole, he could remember having a conversation a little similar to this, with Cass's father.

"More than likely. I didna tell many, but I've been tutored by th' old Chosen. I havena met all of them yet, but I have met Lady Ailbhe." He shook his head. "Th' tales of 'er appearance? They're true. She were fightin' alongside a dark-skinned man named Anton, another archer. He wasna a clansman, as far as I can tell, but his aim were every bit as true as th' lady's." The trapper blinked, and leaned forwards a little. Drake chuckled, recognizing the gesture as wanting to hear more. "Ach, I'll tell ye next my friends an' I stop by th' mountains. We're headin' off t' who knows where after this night. More like than not, t' make sure th' little Summoner gets back t' her home." The trapper sighed and nodded, sitting back a bit.

"Aye, I suppose I'll have t'wait, then. Protection o' the future is more important than th' tales o' th' past." Drake tilted his head to the side a little, frowning.

"If ye dinnae learn from th' past, ye're bound t'repeat it, though." The trapper blinked at Drake, who shrugged a little. "Part o' what my friends an' me are doin' is tryin' to figure out why th' queen acted th' way she does, so as to help other rulers keep from walkin' down that path." The trapper blinked again and tilted his head to the side, but slowly nodded, seeing where Drake's logic was coming from.

A familiar laugh made Drake look towards where Zidane was standing and talking with several young men from the clans. Judging by the way the monkey-tailed man was gesturing, he was telling them about Lindblum, and likely about the women there. Sometimes, Drake couldn't believe his blood brother.

Even though he knew how he would change.

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**End Notes:** And this is the chapter that I wanted to get out on Halloween. XD Should be apparent why, at the beginning of this chapter.


	17. New Moon

**Authoress' Notes:** Augh! I'm so, so, so sorry it took this long to update! I literally had a chapter sitting there with only two pages left to it for the longest time, and got sidetracked by all sorts of things. I feel like a horrible person for that.

On the other hand, though, I'm going to be doing the Camp NaNoWriMo thing, and my project for that...is this fic! So I will be doing a lot of work on this fic for a while. I might not update anything until after the month of April is over, though, so I can go over what I wrote and make sure that things aren't goofy.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise. If I did, there would be a lot more girls kicking butt.

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Chapter 17: New Moon

Drake yawned as he sat up in the lodge he shared with his brothers, shaking his head a little to clear the fog of sleep from it. It wasn't even dawn yet, and he'd woken. Sabin and Edgar hadn't returned, as they were likely sleeping by the fires. Zidane, however, was snoring away on the spare cot that had been found somewhere. Drake leaned off of his cot and grabbed his clothing from the pile he'd made of them on top of his traveling boots.

By the time the archer was dressed, Zidane was sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, looking rather groggy. He groaned softly as he realized that it was time to get up and get moving, and slowly grabbed his clothing from where he'd left it the night before as Drake trotted quietly out the door.

The crisp autumn air made Drake smile widely, casting his eyes towards the orange and red leaves of the trees. There were a few on the ground, but not so many as to crunch loudly under his feet. They all but glowed as the first fingers of light inched over the horizon. The musty scent of woodsmoke drifted on the wind, drawing the archer towards the bakery.

Quina was helping the baker, as Drake found out, making sure that the oven was at the right temperature instead of kneading the dough, much to the archer's relief. He was greeted and handed a hot roll that had just finished baking, and nodded towards a stool in the corner of the kitchen.

"Ye're up early this morn. Off t' help th' wee lass back to 'er home, are ye?" Drake nodded as he bounced the roll off of his palms, not needing to watch it as he waited for it to cool enough to eat.

"And hopefully we'll have an idea of where to go afterwards, to continue on with the reason my friends and I came to Caledonia." Though he knew that Sabin and Edgar knew where Kuja was, he was reluctant to say as much to the others. They weren't supposed to know of it until much later. He would have to explain that when the time came.

The baker handed Drake a mug of hot tea, once he'd bitten into the fresh roll to ease the gurgling of his stomach. He nodded his thanks and set it down to continue eating, unable to keep from smiling at the familiarity. He'd helped a baker in Lindblum for a while, after all. This was the meeting point of two worlds, almost.

The archer was entirely unsurprised when Sabin showed up, yawning and looking half-awake. The monk hadn't been drinking the night before, likely just so that he could see the archer off in the morning. The baker wasn't surprised either, and gestured towards a bucket while handing the buff man a cooled roll of bread. Drake chuckled as Sabin didn't even protest being sent off to do a chore, munching on his roll.

"He comes to help you often?" Drake watched as Quina messed with the fire, adding another log of wood and raking the coals so that they were evenly spread. The baker turned to look at Drake as he stood, draining his mug of tea and brushing the crumbs of bread off of his lap.

"Aye. Could you go an' fetch some wood from the woodpile?" Drake nodded and walked out the door, smiling again at the crisp air. The woodpile for the bakery was between a pair of trees not far away, and there was a rope tied between one of the trees and the baker's house, to help people navigate to the woodpile in the middle of a blizzard. The archer picked up an armful of wood, grunting under the weight, and brought it into the bakery.

Sabin had returned by then, and was drinking his own mug of tea, looking a bit more awake. Drake nodded to him as he put down his armful of wood carefully, brushing his arms off. The monk looked a little amused, leaning against the wall as the baker started another batch of bread dough with the water that had just been brought to her.

"Ye're up early this morn, Drake. Waitin' for th' rest?" Drake nodded, his fingers pausing over the scar on his left forearm. His bracer was still salvageable, but the glove he'd worn on his right hand to protect his fingers from the bowstring was gone, and he'd been feeling it every time he'd drawn his bow.

He was startled by the thought that he'd changed so much since that fateful play in Alexandria, simply physically. He was sure he'd lost some weight because of how hard he'd been traveling, and the stress the rest of the time. He'd once worn an ear cuff, but that had been lost in Cleyra at some point. His coin necklace now was kept safely in his pouch instead of around his neck, leaving the wolf claw necklace that his mother had given him in its place, pinned under his archer's jacket. He stood straighter, his hair was much better kept, and his eyes were clearer. He'd seen that much in the mirror that Edgar had in the lodge so that they could shave in peace. The scars that he had were minor things compared to the rest, really. They were the only remnants of the transitions that caused the rest of the changes.

"Well, ye'll need t' pick up a few things t'aid ye still. I've seen ye grimace somewhat as ye draw yer bow back." Sabin's words shook the archer out of his thoughts. The dark-haired man tilted his head to the side and lifted an eyebrow in a silent question. "Th' glove you were wearin' was keepin' the bowstring from forming any calluses on your drawing hand, I'll be guessin'. An' ye're missin' sommat that ye left with, as well." Sabin reached a hand up and tapped a finger on his own ear cuff, a wry smile on his face.

Drake could tell, even standing in a somewhat dark room and a yard or so away from his brother, that his ear cuff was much more intricate than the one that Drake had been wearing until Cleyra. Why, he had no idea, unless it was simply personal preference. Ear cuffs were nothing more than a sign of a man being someone's heir. Many of the young men that wore them were elder sons, but Sabin wore one because he had been named Wolfe's heir in the occasion of something happening to the Bear Chief while he was gone. Drake had been wearing an ear cuff since he was a boy.

"Aye, it's hard to keep track of sommat like that when ye have many other things to worry after. I didna even notice it was missing until I was safe in Lindblum." Sabin shook his head at Drake's comment, smiling. "I was in a war up til that point, mind. Had the safety of myself an' others t' worry over." Sabin held his hands up with a grin in a somewhat defensive gesture.

"I'm not scoldin' ye for losin' it. Jus' shaking my head that the reason was exactly what I thought it was. Th' elders were kickin' up a fuss over it once they were told who ye were, sayin' that it was a sign ye were givin' up bein' yer da's heir. Yer ma outright told 'em t'stuff their foolishness an' wait to see what it was as happened, from yer own mouth." Drake snorted and shook his own head.

"I keep thinkin' there needs t'be a way to tell which o' th' elders has gone senile an' which haven't." Sabin nodded, looking somewhat tired. "O' course, even suggesting that some of 'em are senile would get most folk chewed out." Sabin chuckled at that, and caught the bucket that the baker kicked towards him. "I should check on the others. Quina, you coming?" The Qu turned to look at Drake, and then looked back at the oven. The Qu shook his/her entire body in a negative, and Drake nodded, starting towards the door. "Alright. We'll come and get you when we're ready to leave, then."

The sun was peeking over the horizon a fair bit by the point the archer left the bakery, so others were up and moving around, some looking more awake than others. The blacksmith was already working, dark smoke floating up from the chimney of his forge. Zidane was standing just outside, talking to the man's apprentice, who was a boy that couldn't have been much older than Bartz.

The boy's grandfather walked out of the forge as Drake walked over, a scowl etched permanently onto his face. That scowl deepened as he looked around, and then eased as his dark eyes lit on Drake. Despite himself, the archer flinched a little. He'd had to apologize to the old blacksmith several times when he was young, for pushing his horses so hard they threw their shoes.

"Wolfe! There ye are, lad. C'mere." Drake sighed a little. The old man was most definitely not weak, in body or in mind, but he was set in his ways. A part of him whispered that the old man had forged himself and it would take a lot of heat to get him to change anything about him.

"...Aye?" Drake knew he sounded wary, as Zidane sent him an odd look. The oddest part was the fact that the old blacksmith actually laughed, a smile creasing his wrinkled face. The archer blinked a few times at that, wondering if he'd dozed off sitting on that stool in the bakery. He'd never seen the old man laugh before.

"I heard ye were missin' yer ear cuff, so I've been workin' on a new one for ye. No matter what th' others read int' things, they always seem t' miss th' most obvious answer. Here." Drake blinked at the old man and accepted the metal object that was pressed into his hand. "Seein' as ye're more'n just an heir, I fancied it up a touch for ye. Did th' same for yer blood brothers as well." Drake nodded, holding the cuff up to the light so he could see it better.

How the old man had managed to get it made in just a few days was beyond him. Unlike the first cuff that he had owned, it wasn't a simple bit of metal curved to rest on his ear without going through it. No, this was silver wire formed into the shape of a dragon knot, and curled. Drake knew for a fact that the old man must have been working nonstop at it to have it done already. And even then, he had to have just finished. Delicate wireworking like this was not something that could be done quickly.

"This is...beautiful. But you can't have started working on it when everyone was told who I was...You wouldn't be even halfway done with it by now, if that were the case." The old blacksmith chuckled at the suspicious look that the archer gave him.

"Aye, I recognized ye as soon as I saw ye. Hard to forget th' lad as gave me so much extra work." Drake flushed at that, cringing. "Unlike those others, I've seen folk as have forgotten themselves. Ye had tha' look." One gnarled finger tapped the side of the old man's head, next to his eyes. "Lookin' like everything were new an' yet old, an' confused t'boot. I started on it then, seein' that yer ear cuff was missin'. Ye've a tan line from it yet." Drake blinked a little and lifted his left hand to run his fingers over the place where his ear cuff had been.

"I do? I'd thought that the time I spent without anything there would have erased that." The old blacksmith chuckled a bit and shook his head as Drake slid his new ear cuff over his ear. The cuff was fair sized, bigger than his old one, with the 'head' of the dragon reached up along the curve of his ear, while the 'wings' were what kept the metal in place. The tail of the knot curved towards the inside of his ear and then back around the outside, as another point of contact. "It fits well. I'm a little surprised at that." The old man grunted a little, crossing his arms.

"It looks better than your old one." Drake turned his head to look at Zidane, who grinned at him a little. "I can see it better than the brass one. It doesn't blend into your skin." Drake lifted an eyebrow at his blood brother, and turned back to the old blacksmith.

"Thank you very much for the cuff. I'd been finding myself reaching up to adjust it, only to find that it wasn't there, recently." The old man nodded, folding his hands behind him and standing as straight as he could.

"Ye're needin' a glove t' stand up to your bow, then. I saw Edgar take that ruined glove o' yours t'yer uncle th' other day." Drake blinked a little, running through the list of uncles he had in his head for a moment. He was an oddity in that he was an only child, after all.

"I'll go an' see if he's been able to do much with it, then." The old blacksmith nodded, and Drake turned, gesturing for Zidane to follow him. Drake honestly didn't expect Dagger or Vivi to get up any time soon. Dawn broke earlier in the mountains, and the only reason Zidane was up was because Drake had been making enough noise to wake him.

"How many uncles do you have, anyhow, Drake? I've talked with at least five." Drake chuckled a little at Zidane's question. They were walking through the entire village, seeing as the uncle that Drake was sure the old blacksmith had mentioned was the one that worked with leather. His home was on the edge of the village to keep anyone from smelling his work. On most days, it was downwind of everyone else.

"Ten. Three brothers to each my ma and my da, an' then my ma has three sisters. My da has one." Zidane made an odd noise, and Drake paused to look back at him. "Me bein' an only child is more'n a little odd. Large families are common here. More hands to help with the harvest." The monkey-tailed man nodded slowly, accepting Drake's logic.

"Aye, an' yer da's th' eldest o' his brothers." Drake grinned at the voice, turning to point that grin at the man that had walked up to them. "I see ye're wearin' a cuff again. Lost th' old one, I'm gatherin'?" Drake nodded, and reached up to tug gently on his new cuff.

"Aye, lost it while I was gone. I think I like this 'un better, though. Fits me better, an' it says more about me than bein' an heir." Drake's uncle nodded, crossing his arms in front of him. He was kind enough to stand downwind of them, seeing as the scent of curing leather often stuck to him.

This uncle of Drake's was the youngest, and only seemed to be a few years older than his nephew. He looked like an older Drake, though he wasn't as slender as the young man. His dark hair was cropped short, the mess sticking up every which way. His eyes were darker than Drake's as well, and he tended to leave his chin unshaven, though Drake knew that his uncle kept his facial hair well trimmed.

"Aye, it does. Dragons bein' creatures o' power, after all, an' ye've got more power about you than I ever thought I'd see from my own kin. More'n yer da, even." Drake tilted his head to the side a little at that. "Not jus' physical power, I'm talkin' 'bout. Ye keep company wi' royalty, an' are bound t' th' future king by a blood oath. Aside from that, ye're a Chosen. Ye've got power draped on ye like a cloak, an' ye can't e'en see it." Drake rolled his eyes a little, his smile still on his face.

"Ach, ye're always goin' on about stuff like that, Unc' Niall. Ol' man Smith said Ed brought my ruined glove to ye?" Drake lifted his eyebrows at his uncle, who nodded.

"Aye, he did. Ripped that 'un up proper, ye did." Drake scratched the back of his head as his uncle started to walk towards his house. The two travelers trailed along behind, Zidane looking a bit awkward. "Couldna fix that'n even if I were able t'work miracles. Was able t' figger out yer hand size, though, so I made ye another." Drake smiled a little with relief.

"I was hopin' ye'd be able t'do so. Loosin' arrows from my bow hurts without sommat betwixt fingers and the string." They walked into the workshop that Drake could remember helping his uncle build when he was younger, and the archer couldn't help but make a bit of a face at the smell. "Whoo. Hard t' miss that scent."

"Aye, th' skin o' that stag ye brought in is curin' yet. Fine one, that, an' not e'en a hole t'find. How'd ye kill it again?" Drake chuckled a little, leaning against the doorframe. Zidane had taken one whiff and backed out immediately, trying not to gag. Drake didn't blame him, really.

"Arrow to the skull, I think," the thief called, making Drake's uncle turn to look at him. "Would make sense that there isn't a hole in the hide, that way. That, and I think I've heard people talking about how it's supposed to be impossible to predict how a stag moves." Drake chuckled a bit at that.

"Aye, it was a head-kill. Didna suffer any." Niall chuckled a bit at that, and shuffled pieces of leather on his workbench, muttering to himself as sunlight started to pour in through the open window.

"Ach, where is it...I know I left it here. Ah! There it is." Niall emerged from the mess of leather scraps with a glove that looked to be roughly the same as the one that Drake had ruined by catching himself as he fell off of a cliff. "I couldna bother the Smiths t' try an' make those buckles again, so I jus' reused 'em. Reinforced th' fingertips t'give you a bit more protection from th' bowstring, but still soft enough t' flex an' bend with yer hand." Drake caught the glove that was tossed to him, and pulled it on to test it.

There was a bit of stitching around where his string rested on his fingers as he drew it back, but it was so tiny that it was hard to see. As normal for anything made by a clansman, there was a bit of detailing to make it look more attractive, but not enough to warrant never using it in a practical situation.

"Had I more time, I'd've added a bit more stitchin' to it, liven it up a wee bit. But seein' as ye need it now, it's good enough." Drake nodded and secured the belts that kept the glove flush to his forearm, and tested his range of motion with the glove on. He slowly started to grin, and shook his head a little.

"Fits better'n th' glove ye took these buckles off of! 'Ave the clans decided whether or not ye're th' best leatherworker on th' mountains yet?" Niall tugged at his own ear with a slight flush at Drake's teasing, though his grin didn't fade.

"Ach, no, they keep hearin' o' sommun in one village or another, but whene'er someone goes to see, there's naught there. Fae, most like." Drake laughed at that, and dug his bracer out of his pouch to put it on. "Eh, what's that?" Drake paused in putting the bit of leather armor on, and held it out for his uncle to inspect.

"Bracer that I got in Lindblum. Not th' best material, but th' man does wonders with what he's got." Niall's eyebrows rose, and he nodded slightly, leaning into the sunlight a bit with the bracer to take a good look at it.

"Well stiffened. Would likely deflect most blows, unless it were with a blade. Could use some decoration, but tha's just me." Drake's uncle paused, and then grinned. "I'll have t'make ye some proper armor sometime." Drake grinned at his uncle, and nodded.

"Aye, I think I'd like that. Would be a good replacement for th' armor I've got now. It were made for my predecessor by his wife, an' adjusted t'fit me instead." Niall wrinkled his nose a little.

"Good enough for th' time bein', though not sommat t' stay with for years." Drake's uncle started to shift through his desk again, the bracer in one hand. He paused to toss the bracer back to the archer, who put it on while his uncle was busy. "Ah, here we are." A rare book was pulled out, along with a battered quill pen and inkwell. A knotted rope was pulled out of a niche in the wall where it wouldn't get lost, and unraveled. "Here, let me measure ye an' I'll start workin' on that armor for ye in th' meantime." Drake nodded and stepped into the workshop proper to let his uncle measure him.

The leatherworker noted down the measurements in his book, doing his best to keep the ink from getting on his fingers and failing. Drake noted that his handwriting wasn't exactly the best anyhow. There was an entire page labeled 'Wolfe' that had the name scratched out and had 'Drake' inked in instead.

"You been working on some armor for Sabin? The feelin' I get lately's that the chaos from the Mist Continent is spreadin'. Seein' as Sabin's a better fighter'n most, I figure he'll be the first to step up an' fight, if need be." Niall paused to look at Drake, his eyes on his nephew's.

"...I haven't, but if ye're havin' feelin's like that, I wager I ought to. I'll ask Sab t'come by later, so's I can talk to 'im about it." Drake nodded and let his arms drop as Niall wrote down the last measurement. "I'll probably do th' same with Ed. I know that they won't fight without t'other. Ed keeps an eye on where Sab is, an' knifes anyone sneakin' up on him in th' back." Drake lifted an eyebrow at that.

"...They'd make a great team with me in th' mix, then." Niall tilted his head to the side, and Drake grinned. "Anyone as tries t' sneak up on my friends ends up a pincushion." Zidane, who heard the comment, snorted.

"Nowadays, yeah, so long as they aren't human. You're still hesitant to hurt people." Drake turned to look out the door at his blood brother, lifting his eyebrows up. The last person he'd fought was someone that the future needed to have alive. If he had killed Beatrix, many things would have been different. Not to mention his bow had been about to break anyhow.

"Y'do realize that, had I tried t'hit th' general with an arrow, my bow woulda broke then an' there. That was afore I got m'new bow, remember." He paused, and thought. "An' that bounty hunter was hard t'hit. She kept a smokescreen up so as I couldn't hit her. Not that I could maneuver enough to loose an arrow safely anyhow." Zidane sighed, seeing Drake's point.

"Yeah, I guess the last time you were able to fire arrows at anyone was in Cleyra. But even then, you didn't hit the queen, and you could have!" Drake rolled his eyes at Zidane.

"Had I done that, we wouldn't have known that Dagger was in trouble, and she'd still be unconscious." Zidane paused, and hung his head. Drake walked out of the workshop to pat him on the shoulder. "Sometimes, not killing people is the smartest move an archer can make."

"Aye, that's true." Drake turned to look at Niall, who had followed him out. "Havin' the power to control th' life an' death of others is a heady thing. It takes someone with a level head to choose their targets proper. Every hunter knows that. Choosin' to take th' buck instead o' th' doe is only natural. Y'take what can be spared. A queen, or a general, they're too precious t'take. A soldier, now tha' a country can spare. Plenty more where that 'un came from." Drake frowned a little, his mouth a tense line.

"At the same time, that's a family never coming back. I've been using maiming blows when I can afford to, so's the person can still live on." Niall blinked at Drake, who had closed his eyes and pointed his face towards the ground. "Seems a bit odd that a Chosen would be like this, but...Life is sacred. Fightin' won't end much but life." A couple of odd noises made Drake look up, and he smiled a bit into the pair of startled faces. He smiled a little.

"It's a very educated view on war." All three men turned to look at Dagger, who had found them. She had a soft smile on her face, and her eyes were on Drake. "It's a pity that more people, especially nobles, don't have this view. So fewer deaths would occur." Drake looked down and scuffed a boot on the ground, hiding his blush.

"Ah, I was jus' raised by a woman as lives true t' the Trifold Ones. Growin' up bein' told that anything y'do will be returned to ya three times'll set anyone on a peaceful path." Niall tilted his head to the side, and scratched at the back of it.

"Aye, th' Stag clan's truer t' the Trifold Ones than most've th' rest. My brother Blair was always of th' 'do others in afore they do you in' type, which makes it odder that he married a woman so peaceful." Drake snorted loudly.

"Peaceful when she was a maiden, maybe. Ye didna see how she handled me, Ed, an' Sab." Niall grinned widely. Even Zidane was grinning. He'd seen how the three men interacted for himself.

"Aye, th' three of ye are a handful for e'en a village. Ach, but I'm holdin' ye up. G'wan an' get th' rest of yer group an' get movin'. I know headin' to Madain Sari's a long trek, an' th' horses hate bein' off th' mountain." Drake chuckled a little at his uncle, but nodded, turning to look at Dagger.

"Eiko's being fussed over by your mother, and Vivi's over by the horses. I don't know where Quina is." Drake chuckled a little. He glanced to Zidane, who nodded and started for the large lodge where the chief and his wife lived.

"I know where Quina is. I'll go grab him an' meet you at the horses." Dagger blinked, looking a little startled, but nodded and started towards the horses. Drake watched his two friends trot off for a moment, and sighed a little, running his fingers through his bangs.

"Tryin' t'lead without seemin' to ain't as easy as most think it is." Drake glanced to Niall, and shared a smile with him. The older man had been an archer as well, but an unexpected encounter with an angry stag had scared him away from hunting. Drake had a feeling that if his uncle ever picked a bow up again, he'd be just about as good as any Chosen. Once he'd shaken off the rust, that is.

"Aye. I'll see ye when we get back." Drake waved to his uncle and trotted to the bakery. Quina seemed to have been waiting for him, as s/he started for the door as soon as Drake poked his head in.

Zidane was just arriving with Eiko in tow as Drake and Quina arrived. A couple of the horses were saddled, but Drake's Aisling wasn't. The archer made sure that the two kids were up on one of the saddled horses together, and then vaulted onto the back of his patient mare. Quina had deigned to run again, and Dagger was perched in the saddle that was on Edgar's favorite mount. Zidane had opted to ride bareback again. He seemed to have gotten a liking for the method since the Ride of the Horned Child.

"Everyone set?" The rest nodded to Drake, and the archer clicked his tongue to Aisling. The mare twisted her ears at him and snorted, but started to walk forwards. The archer knew the path to the base of the mountains like he knew the twist in his bowstring, and Eiko would be able to lead them from there.

~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~*~.~

Drake sighed a little as he looked towards the darkening sky, a wistful look on his face. The clans would have started the bonfires by now, and music would be playing. The food would be just about ready to serve, and clumps of young men would be laughing and trying to decide which were the best among them with games and wrestling. Children would be running around and making friends, trying to get food from the cookfires, and generally getting underfoot.

But he wasn't there. No, instead he was sitting on Aisling's back, more than halfway down the mountains. They'd crossed the Iifa Tree's root that connected the two halves of the continent quite a while back, and even spotted the Helgigars from a distance. Eiko had gone silent, and Drake had a feeling he knew why. While the dwarves feared the Wild Hunt and the Grey Wanderer, the folk of the mountain feared the Helgigars, the protector of the dwarves. Drake could still remember the scolding he'd gotten from his mother when he strayed out too far, and the tales he'd been told of the giant.

The archer even had his bow ready, resting in his left hand as he watched the area. He was leading, so it was his duty to react if he spotted anything before it became a problem. Had there been others from the mountains in their group, he'd be on foot acting as a scout. As it was, he was their guide for now.

Dagger, he knew, had found the information on the silver dragon, but she hadn't said as much, likely assuming that Drake already knew it. Which he did, in fact. It was why he had suggested that she ask for stories of Madain Sari. Just days before Madain Sari had been destroyed, some of the traders of the mountain clans had been in the village to do business. It was them that had spotted the silver dragon, high in the sky. The next trip they'd made out, they hadn't even had to leave the mountains to see what remained of Madain Sari.

Drake had been curious about the village as a boy, and had spoken to Edgar and Sabin several times on wandering off to see the ruins. Every time they even thought to try, they were caught and given quite the scolding. Though Sabin had whispered to Drake that they had seen the ruins from a distance just recently, when the brothers had returned to their home to try to get it back through diplomacy. From what the archer gathered, it hadn't worked. They had encountered Anastasia there, and Edgar had decided that it was time to leave pretty quickly, and Drake didn't really blame him.

"Look there!" Drake turned his head to look back at Vivi and Eiko. The girl was pointing, so Drake turned his head to see what she was pointing at. He blinked as he saw what looked like a pile of stones by the sea. "That's my home! That's Madain Sari!" The girl sounded happy, which simply drove home the fact that she had never known the city before it was attacked.

"I see..." Zidane seemed to have realized the same thing, staring at the ruins. Drake sighed through his nose, casting another glance towards the sky. Dark fell quickly towards the end of the year. Unlike Earth, Gaia saw Samhain as the junction between the years. It was understandable, seeing as it was a time of plenty leading into a time of hardships.

"We should stop for the night now. We'll turn the horses loose to return to the village in the morning, and make the rest of the trip on foot." Drake twisted to look at the others, and sighed a little at the looks they had given him. "Night falls faster than it really seems to. Especially with the moons as one." The tip of Drake's bow gestured towards the moons, which were barely visible in the dimming sky. The smaller moon was indeed hiding behind the larger one for the most part, but not quite as much as it had on the Night of the Horned Child's Ride.

Zidane finally nodded, and started to look around. "We should find a suitable place, then. Someplace that's defendable." Drake nodded in agreement and flicked his eyes around as he urged Aisling forwards. After a few moments, the archer spotted a cave that looked as though it would be suitable.

Drake stood watch over the horses as Zidane went up to the cave to see if it was any good, and then started the tricky task of convincing the horses to follow him up a tiny and very steep trail to the cave. Dagger, Quina, and Vivi were already in the cave by the time the aggravated archer arrived with the last of the horses. It was full dark, and a small fire had already been built.

Dagger was digging into the cloth pack that the headwoman of the clan had given her. Drake plopped down by the fire with a sigh, and turned his head with a chuckle as he felt a horse lay down behind him. Aisling rested her head next to him and sighed a little, closing her eyes. Zidane was off finding a place where they could watch the trail and not be seen, while Vivi was poking at the fire. Quina was sort of just sitting there, staring out into space.

Or so Drake thought, until he turned his head and saw what Quina was staring at. The cave had a perfect view of the Iifa tree. Drake had seen it a few times before, as a boy, but never this close. It truly was an awe-inspiring sight. Even if it did remind him of a mushroom cloud.

"What's this?" Dagger's words brought Drake back to reality, and he blinked at the princess as she pulled out a bundle wrapped in fabric. The archer grinned as he saw the moon pin that kept the knot in the fabric from falling apart.

"Barmbrack! Ah, I'd almost forgotten that tradition!" Everyone stared at Drake, who laughed sheepishly, running his fingers through his bangs. "It's...a sort of fortune-telling tradition. There are metal charms baked into the bread, and depending on which one, or ones, you get, you're supposed to have a future full of whatever symbolism was attached to the charm." The archer's expressive fingers flicked before he stood and unstrung his bow, setting it against Aisling, who seemed to have gone to sleep already.

"Oh! So it's like Kings' Cake?" Drake nodded to Dagger, whose eyes were suddenly bright and excited. "I didn't know that the tradition was so wide-spread! What symbolism do you use?" Drake chuckled and gestured towards the wrapped loaf of bread.

"Break it open, and we'll see what my mother baked in." Dagger blinked from Drake to the loaf she held in her hands, and she passed it over to the archer, who laughed. "Not wanting to mess with that pin, huh?" The princess blushed and pulled out the rest of the food in the pack, passing it out as well. Drake set the loaf to the side, intending to open it once the main part of the meal was done.

The food was good, with some of the better smoked sausages and chunks of a cheese wheel for everyone. Some of the loaves of bread that the baker had made that morning were included. Everyone's mood seemed to be much better for the good food, and the re-emergence of the barmbrack was cheered for.

The bread was already sliced, and Drake handed it out as Dagger looked in the bag again, looking confused. She came out with leather masks, and the archer laughed as he passed her a slice of the bread. He got a wolf mask in return, and he put it on his head, keeping it pushed up so that it wouldn't disrupt how he could see.

"What's with the masks?" Zidane was looking at the mask that he had been handed, which had a large beak, that, once he put it on his face, hid most of the bottom half of his face. Dagger had a rather feline mask, and Eiko snapped up a horse mask, which thankfully had a place for her horn to go. Vivi accepted an owl mask, which he perched on his hat, and Quina licked at the frog mask that s/he was given, trying to see if it tasted like it looked.

"It's to keep malevolent spirits away. Most people refuse to travel at this time of year, because of the chances of meeting spirits that would do harm." Zidane accepted the piece of barmbrack that Drake handed to him. "Just enough slices for everyone. Ma must've made it yesterday an' sliced it today." The last of the slices were handed out, and Drake had to warn Quina about the charms before s/he just tossed the entire slice into his/her gullet.

Drake carefully picked apart his thick slice, and smiled as he found a bundle of oiled paper. He set it to the side and started to eat his slice, smiling at the citrusy taste. It was definitely a taste of his childhood. Even on Earth, he'd loved the taste of citrus, likely because his soul, even then, was bound to Wolfe.

"Oh!" Drake glanced to Dagger as she carefully spat something out in her hand, and grinned. She hadn't realized that the charms were hidden well in the slices. Vivi and Eiko had watched Drake, and picked out their charms before gobbling up their bread. Zidane seemed to be spacing out a little, staring into the fire.

"Yeah, you have to be careful when you bite. You didn't hurt yourself, did you?" Dagger shook her head, and Drake turned his attention to his brother. "Zidane, you alright?" The monkey-tailed thief blinked and turned his head to look at Drake, looking a little confused. "You were sorta spacing out there." Zidane laughed a little, rubbing the back of his head, and then turned his attention to his slice of bread, breaking it apart so that he could find the charm, popping pieces into his mouth.

"This is really tasty. Are we gonna reveal all of the charms at once, and then you explain them, Drake?" The archer nodded, brushing his hands off as the last piece of bread was popped into his mouth. He fiddled with the wrapped charm, trying to guess what it was. A horseshoe for luck? A coin, for wealth? Whatever it was, it was circular and flat. He'd open his last.

Vivi was first, fumbling with the oiled paper until a little metal stick fell out of it. Drake waited until the boy picked it up and handed it to him before assessing what it was. When he saw it, he couldn't help but grin. He'd actually hoped that the boy would get this omen. Eiko was staring at hers by the time he glanced towards her, looking confused. Drake could see at a glance that Dagger had gotten the coin, and Zidane was chuckling over his miniature sword, holding it between his fingers with a silly grin on his face. Quina looked befuddled by his/her charm, which must have been the scroll.

"Well, Vivi, your charm means you'll take the role of leadership sometime in the upcoming year." A pat to the boy's hat came from Zidane, who was still grinning. "Zidane, yours means you have martial prowess in your future, or just a very hard battle. I'm never really sure on the sword. Dagger, you've got either wealth or sovereignty. Quina, yours is understanding or education. Again, not one that I'm terribly familiar with. Eiko, here, let me see yours so that I can figure out what it is. I can't see it from here." The girl passed her charm over, and Drake rolled it around in his hand before looking at it. His stomach dropped, knowing which charm he had now. He didn't let the feeling spread to his face, though. "Ah, this one's luck! That's a good one for anyone to have, Eiko!" The girl bounced, and Drake passed both hers and Vivi's charms back before opening his.

As he'd feared, he'd gotten a miniature version of a torc. It was the strongest omen there was of marriage or a romantic relationship, simply because it hardly ever came out of the charm box. His mother grabbed a charm at random from the box while she baked, he knew. He'd helped her when he was younger, and asked her about all the charms and their meanings before she'd baked the barmbrack. There were only three charms that felt roughly the same and were circular. All three had been baked into this barmbrack.

"Oh? That doesn't look too different from the horseshoe." Drake sighed a little as he looked to Dagger, who was leaning forwards a little. The archer bit his tongue before moving the charm to the center of his palm.

"The meaning's a lot different from the horseshoe. It's the torc, the symbol of marriage or romance." Zidane snorted at that, leaning back a little in his laughter. Drake glared at him slightly, blushing, and glad that it was dark enough that his blush wasn't that noticeable. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." Even Dagger was giggling now, though Drake had a feeling she didn't really know why Zidane was.

Drake grumbled to himself for a while more before he gathered the charms from the rest and put them in his pouch. He'd give them back to his mother the next time he made it back to the village. Vivi and Eiko drifted off to sleep soon enough, and Zidane got up to stand watch. Dagger watched over the children until she slept as well, and Drake never could tell with Quina.

The archer stared at the fire as the flames danced, a stick to prod the logs in his hand. There were many thoughts bustling through his mind, many worrying enough to make him start to feel ill. They had taken so long to get to where they were, that the chances of Kuja and Brahne having already had their battle and been gone were fairly high, in his mind.

Finally, Drake forced himself to take a deep breath, banked the fire, and leaned back against his mare to sleep. Zidane had decided the shifts for watch, and Drake had the dawn watch, with Quina and Vivi between. The archer needed his sleep.

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Drake yawned a little as he perched on the lonely rock that Zidane had picked out to watch from the night before, wishing he had some tea to help him wake up. It was just before dawn, and everything was so peaceful it made him sleepy. Even that horrid milk tea that Edgar loved so much would have been welcomed. That, at least, had spices in it.

A bird sang, welcoming the first rays of sun, and Drake smiled. In the city, he had felt as though he were awash in a sea of humanity, beyond the notice of anyone or anything. Here, in nature, he was as the birds and the animals, greeting the sun back into the sky for another day, giving the sun god power to overcome the darkness. He was part of a whole that worked together, here. In the city, he was a lost ant in a colony of colonies.

Life in the mountains made sense. Much more sense that Lindblum, or even Earth, had. There was a sense of balance, of community, even with the trees and animals. You took only what you needed, as everything and everyone else did. You relied on those around you for everything, from the birds for the time of day and to warn of intruders, to the beasts of the forests for food and materials, to the trees themselves, for warmth. In the cities, there was nothing but people.

A crack of a twig set Drake on edge, and he whirled around, reaching for his quiver as he rose into a crouch. Zidane lifted his hands, and Drake sighed, settling back down. It wasn't the first time Zidane had woken early to sit with whoever was on watch. Drake had a feeling that Zidane just didn't need to sleep as much as everyone else. They both had their masks on, honoring the traditions of the Caledonians.

"...The air feels cleaner here, than in Lindblum." Drake nodded his head to Zidane's comment as the two watched the trail. They weren't expecting to see anyone, but it was better to be safe than sorry, especially with the fae that still lived in the area, and the much more dangerous trolls. Not that Drake really expected much trouble from them, either, seeing as Helgigars, the Constellato that the dwarves bowed to, had passed through the area shortly after the change of shift. Everything that had even a modicum of intelligence laid low if they knew that the giant was around.

"There's more trees, and less machines to smell it up. Y'won't catch a whiff of oil, here. Manure, perhaps, but e'en that doesn't smell like oil does." Zidane chuckled a little, and hooked an elbow around his knee.

"Yeah, but it still stinks." The two men chuckled, and Drake stretched carefully, popping joints that had been begging to get stretched. "...Your clan...they're so friendly." Drake nodded, a smile on his face. "So unlike anyone I've ever met before. Greeting total strangers with open arms and food, and drink...Even if, as you said, there was someone there who had been trying to turn them away from that." Drake hummed, rubbing his thumb against the grip of his bow.

"We're resilient folk. The only reason why Ed and Sab were allowed to stay when they were children? Their da took care to get t'know us mountain folk. Our das were friends. Mine fought for theirs more'n once. I've heard people say that he was more th' king's Champion than the noble that held that office." Drake sighed a little, and stood. "I should go turn the horses loose. Aisling will lead them back to the village, an' keep anyone from tryin' to steal 'em." Zidane nodded, and Drake padded back to the cave that they'd rested in.

The horses were led down to the path one by one, and Drake whispered a bit into Aisling's ear before pointing her home and giving her a soft slap on the rear. The mare snorted at him before whickering softly to the other horses. Their ears perked and the followed her obediently as she started to walk back towards the mountains. The mare was easily the smartest in the herd, and Drake swore on occasion that she was part kelpie.

The others were up by the time Drake made it back up to the cave, and packing up what they had brought. Drake made sure that they hadn't left much of anything behind, picking up the scraps of oiled paper from the barmbrack the night before, and kicked dirt over the fire to make sure that it was well and truly out. By the time he was done cleaning up after the camp, it looked mostly like it had when they had found it.

The group reached the bottom of the mountain and found their way through the foothills by midmorning, and Drake guided them towards the ruins on the ocean's shore, keeping an eye on the sky for Gryphons. They were left well alone for the most part, and reached the ruins by mid-afternoon.

Eiko laughed a little as she ran into the main road of the ruins. Drake looked around as he followed, a slight frown on his face. The intricate carvings were barely weathered, proving to him that this city had been growing when it was attacked. There were tumbled pillars scattered here and there, and there was even a foundation waiting to be built on to the right, with stairs leading up to it. So much potential had been wiped out, and what for? Because they had been a threat to Kuja?

"Zidane! This is my home: Madain Sari, the village of summoners!" Drake hadn't even noticed that the girl had indeed created her infatuation with Zidane. She'd been avoiding the archer for the most part in the village, until being forced to travel with him. She still ignored him, but she was also ignoring everyone else, too.

Zidane was looking around, too, a concerned and confused look on his face. Drake didn't blame him. The place was a danger zone. No doubt, had Drake's father known that this was the girl's home, he'd have forbidden her to return here.

"The village of the summoners...? You live here?" The look on his face said what Drake knew he was thinking. It wasn't really a village. Not anymore. "Dagger?" The princess was staring off towards what must have been a temple. It was the only thing in sight that was actually still somewhat there. Drake supposed that it had been augmented with magic to ensure that it would survive. At the very least, it was a sign of the gods' favor in a time of need, that the house of worship was intact.

"That story...This place really is in ruins..." Drake smiled a little sadly. In the game, no one had told Dagger about what had happened here, though there had been absolutely no mention of an eye in the sky. Just that one day there had been a huge storm, and the next, the village was in ruins, as though the gods had smited the summoners.

"Kupo!" Even Drake jumped at the sudden appearance of moogles, and he was expecting them. Eiko clapped her hands in glee, and scrambled up over some of the ruins to hug the moogles.

"Mocha! Moco! Chimomo!" More moogles appeared from the ruins on the other side of the road, and flew over to land near Eiko, allowing the girl to hug them. "Momatose! Morrison!" Drake glanced over the moogles, and did a double-take at one of them. The last one that Eiko had hugged, which was the largest of them, had a much wiser look to it. There was definitely something different about that moogle. The girl then looked around, looking a little confused. "Where's Mog?" Drake blinked at that.

The archer had thought that the littlest moogle had been with them the entire time. Though perhaps it had been sent ahead, or ran off in the middle of one of the fights that they had encountered in the foothills. "No...Mog got eaten!?" The girl sounded like she was about to fly into hysteria, and Drake closed his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He was dehydrated, and had quite the headache because of it. He didn't need screaming to add to it. "MOG!" The archer hissed a little as the noise made his head throb. He was used to the mountains, where there was plenty of water around. A desert wasteland was the last place he liked to be.

When the archer opened his eyes again, Zidane was offering him a canteen of water, and the little girl was glaring at the little moogle that had scared her, her hands propped on her hips. Drake nodded his thanks to his blood brother and drank some of the water, being careful to do so slowly. The little moogle was 'kupo'-ing at the girl, trying to alleviate her anger at it.

"No, I'm not mad. But don't ever leave me behind again, okay?" Mog bounced with a happy 'Kupo', and the rest took to the air, scattering. Drake noticed that the one named Morrison eyed the visitors before going about his duties again. Drake would have to find him later to talk to him. "Zidane! Follow me!"

Drake wasn't the only one that sighed at the fact that Eiko only seemed to acknowledge the monkey-tailed man. The rest simply had to follow along after him, and hope that the girl remembered that they even existed. As it was, the girl was running off, deeper into the ruins. The archer sighed and closed the canteen again, putting it on his belt for the time being before heading along after her, behind Zidane.

"Zidane, come sit over here!" The thief was grabbed by the wrist and towed over to a bench, and Drake shook his head before wandering off to explore. He didn't want to hear the girl fuss over a man that was quite likely twice her age. The girl hadn't even hit puberty. It was worse than the young girls on Earth, to be honest.

The 'village' was quite large, in fact. It was almost a maze, too, with fallen pillars and crumbling houses everywhere. More than once, Drake had to decide whether to go under a piece of rubble or go around it. Typically, he decided to go around, not wanting to get trapped if something decided to suddenly give way.

He eventually found his way to the coast, and sighed a little before sitting. He could see what he was pretty sure was Eiko's house, as well as a pretty clear path to it. He could see Vivi as well, staring out to sea. He knew, by playing the game that this world seemed to be connected to Earth through, that the boy was thinking some rather philosophical thoughts. Ones that anyone would hesitate to think. Exactly what those thoughts were, though, eluded him.

He had a feeling that he knew what Eiko was up to at the moment, too. The girl was definitely a reverse pedophile. He knew that it was at least partially because she was afraid of being alone. He could see smoke coming out from the chimney over where Vivi was, so she had probably already started to cook.

"There you are, kupo." The archer turned his head, having been sitting on the edge of the cliff. Morrison was hovering behind him, and landed as soon as he saw that the archer's attention was on him. "I see you know the value of losing yourself in your thoughts. But you also know the dangers of that action, hm?" The moogle landed and walked up to stand next to the archer, folding his stubby arms behind him somehow.

"Indeed I do, Constellato." The moogle chuckled at Drake's words, and turned to look out at the sea. Drake knew that his guess was right, immediately. Had the moogle not been a Constellato, he'd have been confused instead of amused.

"As Maria said, you are the brightest of all the Chosen of this era. It is to be expected that a Chosen from the mountains has such promise, however. Never has another group been more connected to the moon than yours. All those who had more wisdom than they could have possibly have learned on their own came from those mountains. They are the true Destined ones. You are one such individual." Drake frowned, and leaned back to rest his weight on his hands.

"What?" Morrison sighed a little, closing his eyes. Drake sighed a bit himself, getting the feeling that he wasn't about to get a straight answer. Something in him whispered that what the Constellato was talking about had to do with Odin's reward.

"I'm afraid you will have to discover exactly what I mean on your own. For me to tell you outright will do nothing but create chaos inside of you. Even with the Horned Lord's intervention, you must find the balance that your soul craves." Drake sighed a bit and looked towards the sea with a frown on his face.

He couldn't even properly remember being called out by Odin, or what the Horned Lord had said to him. The only way that he knew the Horned Lord had even done anything to him was because Sabin had been brave enough to follow him out of the lodge. All he could remember from that incident was the amount of pain that he'd been in.

"...Great. More headaches for me." Morrison chuckled at Drake, and jumped into the air to start fluttering his wings. Drake blinked and looked up at him, wondering why he was doing that.

"I'll leave you to your thoughts, then. Though perhaps you should return to Miss Eiko's abode soon. It wouldn't do for you to lose track of time and get lost." Drake nodded, and watched as the Constellato moogle flew off.

Drake knew he was right about needing to get to Eiko's home soon, though for a completely different reason. He didn't know if Lani was sneaking around just yet. And seeing as she'd attacked him so relentlessly in the tunnels, he wasn't about to have a one-on-one fight with her. That would likely end up getting him maimed.

The archer grunted a little as he stood up, arching his back enough that it cracked. He shook his head to clear it out a little, and started along the path along the cliff. The scent of the salt in the air was oddly soothing to him, as well as the cry of the seagulls. He couldn't remember spending much time around the ocean in either set of memories, but there was something that felt like home about this village.

The village was so familiar, but he couldn't remember having ever been there before. His feet found the streets easily, though the rubble still tripped him up. He had to stop to think about where he was going. He knew that this path here along the cliff was the best place to watch the sunset, as well as to watch the storms that whipped up along the coast. He knew these things, but he couldn't say why. Storms weren't shown in the games, though there had been the barest hint of the sunsets.

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**End notes:** The milk tea that is mentioned in this chapter that Edgar likes is Chai tea. I actually love to drink it, if it's been made well.

I did a little bit of research while writing this chapter on the meanings of different charms. The torc is usually replaced by a ring of some sort in most King's Cakes, though. Or there could be a button, which, as I understand it, means that the person is going to be a bachelor all the next year.

**_Read, enjoy, and__ review!_**


	18. Bedlam Boys

**Authoress' Notes: **Yay, I finally got off my butt and started to post some of the stuff that I wrote last month! XD Not working on anything at the moment, but that's mostly because I'm trying to get the research paper that's my Geology Final done. I freaking HATE research. It could burn in a fire and I'd be cheering.

Anywho. I've got the rest of this half of the story (That is, the rest of this 'book') completely written out, and I'm trying to get my rear in gear to work on the start of the next segment. Life gets in the way, along with new fandoms, new fanfic ideas, muse being geared towards drawn art for a while, all that good stuff.

Oh! Also, if you folks hadn't noticed, I'm starting to give my stories some cover art. The first book and this one both already have pieces, and I'll try to figure out what scene to draw and color for the next segment. Yes, I did that art myself. If I feel like it, I'll put a link up so people can see what the little bitty slivers came from.

**Disclaimer: **I really shouldn't have to say this anymore, but for the sake of covering my broke ass: **I don't own the Final Fantasy franchise. Or the lyrics that are in this chapter.**

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**Chapter 18: Bedlam Boys**

Drake yawned a little as he reached the area around Eiko's house, and blinked as he saw that everyone had already gathered. He smiled a little at the thought that he'd actually be the last one to arrive for once, and scratched at his ear cuff as Zidane greeted him with a grin.

"About time! I thought we were gonna start eating without you." Zidane snorted as one of the moogles poked his head out of the house to announce that the food was done. They all filed into the small building, and Drake looked around, being careful of where he put his feet.

This building was built on the scale of a young girl and the moogles, for sure. It was easily the most intact building of the entire settlement, though. He could see that the chairs built around the table were covered in a mosaic of salvaged tiles to liven up the place, books and intact jars on the shelves against the wall, a few threadbare tapestries, a wilting bouquet of flowers, and a few rugs scattered on the ground. A glance to next to the door told him that Eiko probably made the broom herself.

"Wow, this looks great!" Drake couldn't help but smile and nod to Zidane's compliment. It really did look a lot better than he thought it would. He eased into one of the seats as Eiko walked into the room, beaming at the compliment.

"Welcome, Zidane!" Drake had the feeling that she wanted to add another word in the middle there, and was glad that she had quelled that urge. It would have been far more than a little awkward. "Have a seat!" Drake lifted an eyebrow at Eiko as she shot him a glare.

"You made a lot!" Vivi sat next to Drake as soon as he waddled in, and Drake smiled at the boy. Dagger hesitantly walked in, looking around with wide eyes. The archer didn't really blame her, seeing as Eiko hadn't exactly been hiding her dislike for the woman.

"What's his name...? Quina? S/he helped me." At least Eiko hadn't bothered to try to take all of the credit for herself. The incredulous look on Zidane's face told what he was thinking before he opened his mouth, and Drake was grinning even before he heard his blood brother's comment.

"S/he helped you without eating all the food? Amazing." Drake chuckled quietly to himself, remembering that Quina had helped the cooks of his clan quite readily, mostly without eating much. He had even seen the Qu patiently keeping an eye on the baker's ovens to keep them at the perfect temperature.

"Vivi, too!" The young black mage ducked his head and fiddled with his hat in an embarrassed manner. Drake was pulling his glove off, flexing his hand. The leather was still new, and though his uncle had softened it, it still wasn't conforming quite to his hand just yet. Drake noticed Zidane glance to Vivi as the boy chuckled softly.

"Let's eat!" Drake licked his lips as everyone else sat around the table, and the food was doled out. He dug in happily as soon as he tasted the fish and stew. It really was quite good.

Jokes were told as they chatted over the food, and Drake relaxed, getting to know the moogles as they fluttered around him, curious about the archer. They were playful creatures, with many jokes to repeat. His eyes flicked to Zidane as he asked Eiko the question that he already knew the answer to, about where the other summoners were.

Drake's expression darkened a little, his smile fading. Eiko's got more than a little strained, her eyes sliding to her plate. Drake immediately debated kicking Zidane for the question. That would break the situation, though, and he'd have to explain.

"Underground? Yeah. They're all underground, sleeping the eternal sleep." Now Zidane cringed. All talk stopped, and Drake sipped at the tea that one of the moogles had made for him. "I'm the last survivor of my tribe." Drake glanced towards Dagger. Eiko wasn't nearly as alone as she thought she was. "I've been living with the moogles ever since my grandpa died last year."

Now that was something that Drake hadn't remembered off the top of his head. He didn't recall Eiko ever saying exactly when her grandfather had died. No wonder she was desperate to attach herself to a group. She was struggling just to feed herself, unable to farm any plots of land that were within the city. He knew there had to be some plot around for the potatoes, as meager as the stew was. The bulk of the meal was actually the fish, and the stew was more of a soup.

Drake stayed quiet as Dagger apologized and Eiko put on a brave face, actually doing a pretty good job of acting, though the archer could still see in her eyes that she wasn't as happy as she said she was. Something else she said caught his attention, though.

"Ten years ago, which is four years before I was born, a natural disaster struck the village. Even the survivors suffered a great deal." Drake frowned a little, the mental image of clouds and chaos filling his mind. He lifted his left hand and tugged at his ear cuff a little, banishing the images aside. "But my mom and dad fell in love and had a family. Not that I remember what they look like, because they died when I was very young."

Drake frowned as the images didn't leave him alone, and rubbed at his eyes as Eiko flirted at Zidane a bit. Why was he seeing these things? They weren't the images from the game that he was seeing. No, it was more inland than the port. It was more towards the center of the city, the square where the marketplace had once stood.

It wasn't until Zidane nudged Drake that he realized that the dinner was over. He'd been lost in thought through the entire conversation about the play. He blinked a bit as he glanced around for a moment, assessing what had happened. The moogles had cleared away what little was left over Morrison gestured for him to follow him, and the archer blinked before doing so, leaving Zidane alone with Eiko.

"You looked lost in thought." Drake blinked at Morrison as he was led to the roof. The view from the lone sturdy building was actually a great deal better than he'd thought. "Perhaps you are starting to understand." Drake shook his head with a frown, images flashing before his eyes, changing the view from the ruins that he knew he saw, to a bustling, vibrant, colorful city full of people. It was so much more vivid than how his imagination had filled in Burmecia that he felt his breath leave him all at once. He quickly found himself sitting, his head in his hands.

"I've never been here before...how do I know what it looked like?!" His voice was the barest whisper. This was even more frightening than the memories of being Wolfe. Those memories had felt familiar, as though he'd dreamed them. These ones, of Madain Sari, felt foreign, as though someone were pushing them into him.

"Because a part of you has been here before." A soft female voice made Drake look up into the eyes of Maria, the Constellato that he fought for. She crouched next to him, the cream cloak she was wearing against the desert sun fluttering in the breeze. "You know of the connection between the moon and the mountains. A third was forced into place by the one that forced that connection closer." Drake paled a little.

"...Ten years ago was when the Summoners were killed...And ten years ago was when Ed and Sab moved into the village, right when I was starting to be more insistent in coming here..." There were still a few pieces missing, he could feel, but those two instances fit together somehow. "I know Kuja was responsible for the one, but..." The information that Drake knew as Kole popped back up. "No...He was responsible for both..." His words faded into whispers again. "But...why do I have the memories of a summoner?"

Maria's hand ruffled Drake's hair softly, as his mother, both as Wolfe and as Kole, often had. He couldn't help but smile, his body relaxing at the familiar gesture. It banished the memories from the summoner completely, easing the growing headache.

"Leave it be for now, child. You don't have all the pieces yet, and you'll only drive yourself frantic." Drake blinked up at Maria, only to find that she'd left without warning again. Morrison was the only one left, his paws folded behind him.

Drake had given a spot in a dusty room to sleep, and an old hammock that he worried wouldn't hold his weight, but did. He had a good view of the sea from his hammock, and a fresh sea breeze to curl around him. He could see the moonlight reflecting off the distant ocean, and heard the murmurs of others that couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, as he was.

"_Alone for a while, I've been searching through the dark.  
__For traces of the love you left, inside my lonely heart.  
__To weave by picking up the pieces that remain,  
__Melodies of life, love's lost refrain..."_

The archer blinked as he heard the song, suddenly feeling much more awake. That was Dagger's voice, for sure, but he hadn't known that she'd figured out the words. Maybe being here, and knowing more about the story had unlocked the memory?

"_Our paths, they did cross, though I cannot say just why.  
__We met, we laughed, we held on fast, and then we said goodbye.  
__And who'll hear the echoes of stories never told?  
__Let them ring out loud until they unfold."_

Drake chuckled a little, listening to the distant song. He found himself humming along, a sad smile on his face. It had been years since he'd last heard this song, and he still remembered the lyrics. He started to sing along quietly, keeping his voice a low murmur, too quiet for anyone to hear unless they were just outside his window.

"_In my dearest memories, I see you reaching out to me.  
__Though you're gone, I still believe that you can call out my name."_

Cass. He still had to find her. If he had been drawn to Gaia, so had she. She may not even have her memories from earth, suffering the opposite problem that he'd had. If she hadn't been driven mad by the confusion that he'd felt because of the mixing memories.

"_A voice from the past, joining yours and mine.  
__Adding up the layers of harmony...  
__And so it goes, on and on...  
__Melodies of life,  
__To the sky beyond the flying birds, forever and beyond..."_

Drake blinked as he realized that he was crying, thanks to his thoughts being focused on Cassandra. He stopped singing along, lifting his callused left hand to wipe tears from his eyes as he closed them again. He hadn't even realized how much he loved Cass until he couldn't be around her. Enough so that he allowed a woman that looked just like her to trick him.

"_So far and away, see the bird as it flies by,  
__Gliding through the shadows of the clouds up in the sky.  
__I've laid my memories and dreams upon those wings,  
__Leave them now, and see what tomorrow brings."_

Dagger kept singing, her voice almost longing now. What memories was she thinking? Or was she thinking of Zidane, and living with him? Drake knew that they fancied each other. They just allowed society to get in the way.

"_In your dearest memories, do you remember loving me?  
__Was it fate, that brought us close and now leaves me behind?"_

Drake kicked his leg, sending the frayed hammock rocking with a creak. Despite the beauty of the song, it really was quite a bittersweet message. One that nobles would surely swoon over, but anyone with sense would shake their heads at. Of course, anyone missing someone they love would feel heartache at the song.

"_A voice from the past, joining yours and mine,  
__Adding up the layers of harmony,  
__And so it goes, on and on...  
__Melodies of life,  
__To the sky beyond the flying bird, forever and on..."_

Even Dagger sounded sad now, singing the song. Maybe she was singing to her ancestors? It was a reasonable thought, considering where they were. And would explain some of the lyrics. Drake couldn't help but sing along to the last verse, a grim dread towards the future filling him.

"_If I should leave this lonely world behind,  
__Your voice will still remember our melody...  
__Now I know we'll carry on...  
__Melodies of life,  
__Come circle 'round and grow deep in our hearts...  
__As long as we remember..."_

Drake wiped at his face with that, sighing heavily. He knowledge of what lay before them was limited, and he didn't even rightfully know if the ripples he'd made with his own actions would doom the world. Or if he'd find some way to get back to Earth, or if he'd be forced back instead of going to Terra...

"Positive thoughts, Drake. Deal with things as they come." The archer was surprised by how rough his own voice was, even as he whispered to himself. He was so scared of how things might end up, but because of that, he didn't dwell on it. And when he did think on it, he felt so overwhelmed. "Gods, I don't know how much of this stress I can handle..."

The sound of the waves started to seem like it drowned out everything else, the rhythmic roar acting almost like a lullaby for the archer. He soon managed to drop to sleep, one leg hanging out of the hammock while the other was curled so his heel was pressed against his knee, with one arm tucked behind his head to act as a pillow and the other draped across his belly.

He stayed asleep even as the sun rose, at least until the ray of light crept onto his face and onto his eyes. He groaned and turned his head. Unfortunately, that was just what the hammock needed to flip. The crash of the archer falling to the ground got the attention of everyone awake, and they came running to see what had happened. Much to Drake's chagrin.

"You alright, Drake?" Zidane was laughing a bit as the archer forced himself up. The barechested man groaned and shook his head before getting his feet underneath himself, rubbing at the red mark on his face where it had hit the ground.

"Can't say that I've had that wakeup call before..." That just got Zidane to laugh even more. Drake sighed and ruffled his hair before scratching at his chin. "Hm...Hey Eiko, do you have a mirror I could use? I kinda need to shave..." True enough, his facial hair was getting a little long, and rather scratchy.

"Ah? Oh, yeah! Grandpa had one that he used for shaving. Hang on, let me find it." The six-year-old scampered of with a giggle for Drake's predicament, the moogles following along after her.

"Mm. I could probably use a shave, too. Lost my mirror somewhere recently." Drake blinked at Zidane, and then had to cover a yawn. "Didn't sleep well last night?" The archer shrugged a little.

"Something about this place feels off to me, is all. Took me a long time to get to sleep last night." Zidane nodded, his smile fading just a little. Drake had sworn he'd heard his blood brother talking to Vivi last night. And he hadn't needed to hear clearly to know what happened. That was an infamous scene, after all.

"Yeah, I know what you mean...It's almost like being in the Mist again, only we aren't..." Drake frowned a bit at that, some very vague pieces started to click together in his head. He couldn't get a good mental grip on some of the pieces, though, and it was nearly enough to drive him nuts.

"Sort of...But it's also familiar to me, and I swear I've never been here before. It doesn't feel like when my memories were returning, either." Zidane frowned, looking concerned, and Drake shook his head. "It's probably from hearing traders tell stories about it. Nevermind."

The last thing Drake wanted was for Zidane to worry about him. There was enough going on that was going to occupy the Genome's attention, and Drake didn't need to add to it. Well, more than he could help. As it was, the thief was chuckling at Drake's words, shaking his head.

"Go figure. You do have an overactive imagination. You didn't hurt yourself with that fall, did you?" Drake shook his head as he sat on the floor and started to stretch. He winced as his hips started to let him know just how little they enjoyed the odd position he'd been sleeping in.

"No, but I feel stiff from the way I slept. I don't suppose there's anything for breakfast cooking." Zidane tossed Drake a bit of trail rations, and the archer sighed, catching the object. "Thought so."

Eiko came back quickly enough, allowing the two men to shave with their belt knives. Drake felt much better with a significantly smaller amount of stubble scratching at his neck. They stopped by the kitchen just long enough to fill up their canteens and slake their thirst before heading to the entrance of the village.

Drake stayed on edge the entire way, getting an odd look from Zidane. The archer was genuinely expecting the bounty hunter to pop out at any moment. His memories about this segment of the game were overshadowed by what happened afterwards. He was a little fuzzy on what happened here.

"Zidane, I want to come back here." Drake blinked to Dagger as he ran his fingers over his bow, seeing that the princess was looking over the ruins. "When I first saw the Eidolon Wall, I was scared..." Drake lowered his eyes, a thoughtful look in them as he started to check his arrows now, assured that his bow was in working condition still. "But when I went inside and saw the murals, they calmed me. I want to see more."

The ruins of Madain Sari were indeed very large. They had all gone in every which direction when they had arrived, and they didn't bump into each other again until after the moogles had rounded them up. It had once been about half the size of Lindblum, quite a sizable city for such a desolate land. Drake could only guess how they had survived to grow into such a large settlement. The landscape wasn't very forgiving to crops.

"Sure. We'll come back after we check out the Iifa Tree." At least Drake wasn't the only one curious about the tree. Though, he kept calling it Yggdrasil in his head, thanks to the Nordic name for the World Tree on Earth. Perhaps the Iifa Tree wasn't the exact same, but it was close enough, for him. The legend of a tree similar to it had spread to Earth, even if the tree was Terran in nature.

"Thank you..." Drake tilted his head to the side and scratched at his head, loosening sand and grit from his scalp. While Caledonia wasn't mostly desert, there was a fair bit of soil and dirt flying around. It wasn't like the desert around Cleyra, where he had sworn he'd lost more than a couple of layers of skin.

"We gotta come back and get Quina, anyway. We can't just leave him here." Drake chuckled a little at the apparent assignment of gender to the Qu. He wasn't the only one to have decided that, and that was a relief to him.

"Are you coming back here for Eiko?" Drake glanced upwards at that. Dagger was glancing at him at the same time, and they met eyes. Drake nodded, seeing that the question had been directed towards him. His parents had told him to gauge whether or not the girl had enough support, and the archer had seen that she truly didn't. If she continued to grow up here, she would end up wild, for sure, even with the moogles.

"She's only six years old...She acts tough, but I think she's lonely." Zidane had seen the nod that Drake had given, but had still decided to put his own two cents in. Vivi looked around, a frown in his yellow eyes.

"I haven't seen her today..." Drake blinked at that. He then realized that Vivi hadn't been one of the ones to see if he was alright after falling out of the hammock. Zidane was thinking along the same lines, judging by the smirk he tossed at Drake. The archer had a weary smirk of his own on his face, only to lose it as he snapped his head up, his eyes sliding to the moogles that had started to congregate loudly. Zidane called the name of the girl they'd just been talking about as she bounced her way down a pile of rubble, giggling.

"Be careful, Eiko! What if that shifted under you?" The little girl blinked at Drake's concern and then waved it off with a bright smile. The archer growled under his breath at her carelessness.

"You can't break the seal of the Iifa Tree without calling an eidolon." Zidane frowned a little and looked to Drake, who lifted his shoulders slightly in a shrug. How was he supposed to know what a six year old was thinking?

"You're coming with us?" Drake's eyes slid to Dagger as Zidane asked the question. While the princess could summon eidolons easily, they didn't know everything about the situation surrounding the seal on the tree.

"Don't you want me to?" The archer glanced to the little girl, and sighed slightly as he saw the pout on her face. And Zidane, being the gentleman he was, just couldn't say no.

"Of course I want you to come along!" Dagger rolled her eyes skyward for a moment before controlling her facial expressions again, linking her hands behind her back as she forced her face into the non-judgmental blandness that told people that she was hiding what she really felt.

"That's what I thought. Okay, I'll join your team for a while!" Drake sighed through his nose and ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging some grains of sand that had embedded themselves in his scalp. "Vivi, Dagger, Drake, let's have fun!" The archer blinked at the fact that he had been included. "The Iifa Tree is beyond the Conde Petie Mountain Path!" Drake turned to look at the mountains that they had been walking on several days ago. "Let's go!" The dark-haired man turned as Eiko vaulted over Vivi past him, and sighed slightly, scratching the back of his head now.

"It's too hot to be that energetic..." Zidane chuckled a bit and patted Drake on the back as Vivi got up from where he'd fallen. Dagger was frowning now, her hands on her hips.

"Why are you so nice to everyone, Zidane?" Drake sighed a bit and shook his head, heading after the six-year old as his blood brother tried to figure out what exactly had made his ladyfriend so miffed.

"Eiko, wait up." The girl turned around and frowned at Drake, disappointed that he had been the one to chase after her. "Don't go running off. I know you know the area, but you're not alone now, so you have to be aware of how much your actions make the rest of us worry." Drake pulled his bow out and ran his hand along it, keeping it unstrung for now.

"Why do _you_ care?" Drake heaved a sigh, and glanced over his shoulder as he heard footsteps. Dagger had decided to follow him.

"Well, for one, my ma an' da both worry about you. I grew up wi' the sayin' 'it takes a village to raise a child'. An' I was a wee lad once myself." Drake took his bowstring out and strung his bow. "I know how easily a child can get into trouble." Eiko scowled at Drake, but the archer ignored it, straining a bit as he bent the bow.

"Let's get going people, we need to move quickly." Drake waved to Zidane and started to trot off in front, looking around as he acted as point. He had a ground-eating lope, but his stamina wasn't as good as it had once been.

By the time night fell, Drake was feeling pretty tired. He was half awake as he ate, and then crashed almost immediately. Zidane and Dagger both chuckled about that, but they'd seen the archer dashing around all day long. Vivi and Eiko were both almost as tired as the archer, though they'd been able to keep up with Zidane and Dagger easily.

The next day saw them at the mountain path, where Drake insisted the air was cooler and cleaner. He was certainly acting more energetic. Much to Zidane's confusion, he was more awake once they stopped to camp than he'd been the day before. He was feeling good enough to sing a bit even.

_"I'll dance all night,_  
_With stars I'll fight,_  
_But the fray, it shall become me!_  
_Spirits white as lightning_  
_Did on my journey guide me._  
_The sun did shake,_  
_The pale moon quake_  
_Whene'er they did espy me!"_

The archer paused when he noticed he was getting stared at, and laughed, plopping down onto a rock. Dagger was looking at him worriedly, which just made him laugh harder. He finally calmed down enough to explain to his worried comrades.

"I've been trying to push my stamina since arriving in Caledonia. It's finally back to where it was before I lost my memories in Lindblum. Sorry if I seem a bit mad, but I'm just so happy about that." Zidane scratched at his head, looking a bit confused. "I'm more mobile than most archers, Zidane, and with such a flat area, I have to be able to move fast to get away from danger and still have enough energy to keep walking all day long."

Dagger nodded, understanding where Drake was coming from. She offered him one of the canteens that had been heated by the small fire that Vivi had started, and he took it, gulping down a few mouthfuls. He knew that drinking cold water when his body was as warm as it was would only make him sick.

"What were you singing, anyway? I've never heard that song before." Drake blushed a little at that, and waved his hand at Eiko's question. "Hey!" Drake took another gulp of water and stretched his legs out.

"It's a song I really shouldn't have been singing around kids. Sorry." Zidane was snickering, and Drake blinked at him.

"You were singing that song after the Ride of the Horned Child, just before you fell asleep." Drake planted his face in his palm loudly. "Not that I remember enough to actually sing it. Right about then was when you actually drank me under the table." Drake blinked at that, finally feeling his thirst slaked.

"Wait, what? I don't remember that." Dagger giggled a little as she sat to the side with Vivi and Eiko, her eyes on the boys. "Then again, I can't remember the entire night. I think I had drinking contests with more than just you." Zidane nodded, laughing a bit more.

"You drank your cousin under the table before I challenged you. Then a couple of drinks with Sabin put you under." Drake scratched at his head with a slight yawn. He was feeling more tired just remembering how much he had exhausted himself that night.

"Sounds like Sab, to be honest. If I get drunk, he's usually the one that'll keep me from making a complete fool of myself." The archer grinned slightly, and scratched at his nose. He blinked as he peeled some skin off, and sighed, looking at the thin layer. "Great. I've been in the sun so long I'm peeling. Lovely."

Eiko giggled at that as Drake carefully picked at the peeling skin on his face. Dagger cast a curative spell on the archer as Zidane started to set up the tent. As soon as they had some food, Drake went into the tent and allowed himself to pass out.

Vivi woke the archer before dawn the next morning for his turn in keeping watch. The archer took advantage of the night watch to hone the bladed heads of his arrows. The sound of metal moving over the whetstone soothed him, and the moons were bright enough for him to see the edge clearly. At the same time, he sang softly to himself, having seen the well-kept markings of strong anti-monster spells that the trading families used.

"_To see mad Tom of Bedlam,  
__Ten thousand miles I'd travel  
__Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,  
__Just to save her shoes from gravel."_

One arrow was set down and another was plucked up. The head on this one was one that Drake didn't use often. The forked head was meant to maim and injure limbs enough that they had to be removed. He had only used such an arrow on monsters, but it was meant originally for use against humans.

"_O will I sing  
__Bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,  
__Bedlam boys are bonnie.  
__For they all go bare  
__And they live in the air  
__And they want no drink nor money."_

Drake took his time sharpening the inside edges of the arrow, using a pigeon feather that hadn't made the grade to test the edge. Once he was content with the inside of the arrowhead was sharpened, he started on the outside edge.

"_I went to Pluto's kitchen,  
__Just to break my fast one morning.  
__It's there I got souls piping hot  
__That on the spit were turning.  
__My staff has murdered giants  
__And my pack a long knife carries,  
__To cut mince pies from children's thighs  
__With which to feed the fairies."_

Drake heard a bit of movement behind him in the tent, and moved his head a little but didn't look away from his task. The sun was tingeing the sky pink, warning of dawn. Zidane had been the one to take the first watch, so it stood to reason that he was the first one up.

"_O will I sing  
__Bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,  
__Bedlam boys are bonnie.  
__For they all go bare  
__And they live in the air  
__And they want no drink nor money."_

Zidane walked out of the tent and started to poke at the fire that Drake was facing away from. The archer gauged that the forked arrowhead was sharpened nicely, and set it down, picking up a broadhead arrow. He had many of those.

"_No gypsy slut nor doxy  
__Shall take my Mad Tom from me.  
__I'll dance all night, with stars I'll fight,  
__But the fray, it shall become me.  
__Spirits white as lightning  
__Did on my journey guide me.  
__The sun did shake, the pale moon quake  
__Whene'er they did espy me."_

Drake smirked a little as Zidane made a small startled sound, recognizing the lyrics that the archer had been singing earlier. The man had deliberately avoided the first part of the verse he'd chosen to belt out because of the children that were around, but with it being so early, he felt safe enough to sing even the more lurid verses.

"_Still I sing  
__Bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,  
__Bedlam boys are bonnie.  
__For they all go bare  
__And they live in the air  
__And they want no drink nor money."_

The sound of metal scraping over stone became regular and soft again, Drake rocking back and forth a little as one hand pressed the blade to the stone and the other holding the shaft of the arrow. Zidane didn't say anything, just listening to the archer tending to what was a soothing task for him.

"_It's when next I have murdered  
__The Man-in-the-Moon to a powder.  
__His staff I'll break, his dog I'll shake,  
__There'll howl no demon louder.  
__So drink to Tom of Bedlam,  
__He'll fill the seas in barrels.  
__I'll drink it all, all brewed with gall,  
__With Mad Maudlin I will travel."_

Drake smiled towards the sun as it finally raised all the way, and set checked his broadhead arrow, setting it to the side and packing up his whetblade. The sharpened arrows were put into the quiver he'd taken them out of, and then stretched.

"That's the song that you were singing?" Drake nodded as he twisted to look at his blood brother, smiling sheepishly. "I see why you said it wasn't for kids to hear. Jeez..." Drake laughed at that, and got up to pad around the camp, leaving his unstrung bow next to his quiver on the ground.

"Yeah. I just like that one bit that I sang yesterday. It can be sort of fun, seeing the looks that people give me as they listen." Zidane snorted at that, and stretched, laying on his back. "That and it's normally a song that folk sing while drunk, so it's fun anyhow."

"Hah. That's true. It was quiet last night. Not even an oglop scuttled by, I swear." Drake chuckled and hopped on top of a charm rock to sit, resting his elbows on his knees as he tapped his heel against the stone.

"That's cause of these things. I wasn't sure how much juice they had left, but looks like they still work. Every trading caravan around these parts has a mage of some sort. According to my mom, every time a mage stops by a campground like this 'un, they refresh the charms. Hasn't been a trading caravan out this way for a long while, though." Zidane tilted his head to the side, and leaned forwards to take a closer look at the stone that Drake was sitting on.

"Mm...Morning already?" Drake smiled a greeting to Dagger as she stepped out of the tent. Zidane perked up a little, and stood from where he was sitting by the fire. "Oh. Good morning, Zidane." Drake smirked at that, and stood to poke his head into the tent to wake Vivi and Eiko.

They had a short breakfast and started their hike again. Drake acted as point once more, bounding up nearly vertical faces to get a better perspective. The archer managed to pick off most monsters that were targeting the group even before they could get close to the travelers. He didn't use his special arrowheads on them, though, keeping a quiver full of arrows that had simple fire-hardened points made out of the shaft itself. They flew differently, but they were cheaper.

By the time they camped again, they had a good view of the Iifa tree. Drake guided them to another campsite. It had been used much more recently than the one they'd stayed at the night before, so Drake felt confident that they could afford to be a bit less careful with the guard.

The archer again was the first one asleep, and Zidane had to stop Eiko from drawing on the man's face with some charcoal. Vivi was content to sit next to the fire and relax, along with Dagger. Zidane had his hands full with Eiko, and was not enjoying it.

The next couple of days settled into that routine, until they reached the cliffs around the Iifa Tree. Drake looked over the drop, and frowned. He hadn't thought of it before, but it really looked like an ancient crater from some cosmic impact. He had to concentrate to understand why, tugging at his memories of Earth hard before it came to him. Once it had, he stared at the canopy, wanting nothing more than to burn the whole thing to the ground.

"There's Mist here!" Drake glanced towards the princess for her exclamation, and then looked around. True enough, there was. For some reason, though, it hadn't registered in Drake's mind. He was used to seeing the low-lying cloud around the base of the Iifa Tree, whenever he saw it from a distance.

"So this place really must be the source of the Mist." Drake nodded, and turned as he heard a thump, stepping over to Vivi to help him up and dust him off. Eiko moved to see if he was alright, and Drake smiled at the friendship the two of them had.

A sound that was a mix between a gong and someone walking into a door sounded, and Drake got to his feet immediately, looking to Zidane, who was stumbling back a little and shaking his head, one hand on his face. He was the farthest of the group forwards, so it made sense that he had been the one to cause the noise.

"What was that?!" Drake stepped towards Zidane to see if his brother's nose was bleeding, but the monkey-tailed man waved him off, glancing at his white glove for the same reason and sniffing slightly.

"That was the seal." Drake blinked at Eiko, and then walked forwards from where he was, his hand outstretched so he wouldn't walk into the thing like Zidane had. "It shouldn't hurt you, but are you alright?" Drake resisted rolling his eyes as the six-year old worried over the man that was probably old enough to be her dad.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Stung a little, but no harm done." Drake smirked at Zidane, pausing to prop one hand on the belt that held his spare quivers. He was of the opinion that if anyone could get hurt by something harmless, it was Zidane. Not that he was clumsy, but he had a talent for doing the impossible.

Drake finally found the seal as Zidane backed up and tried to bodyslam his way through it. The archer shook his head a little at that, tapping his long fingers on the seal to listen to the echo of the impact. It sounded almost musical, but the magic that rippled from the spot did nothing but lightly warm his fingertips.

"Eiko, only you can break the seal?" Drake spoke instead of Zidane, seeing that his blood brother was having too much fun testing the seal. The six-year old turned from her staring at the blond to look up at the archer. "Zidane, knock it off, you're not gonna get through it that way." The thief did so, though he frowned a bit at the archer.

"Yeah, that's why the dwarves at Conde Petie call this place Sanctuary." Eiko managed to get everyone's attention back on her with that simple sentence. Drake pushed his hand against the barrier, enjoying the warm feeling against his skin.

"You said that they used the power of an eidolon to seal this place?" Drake looked up, mentally guessing the size of the barrier. If it was shaped like a dome, it was one massive barrier. Eiko nodded, ignoring the fact that the archer was lost in his own thoughts. "Amazing. So how do you break it?" Eiko giggled a little at Zidane, and the archer turned his head to look at her, taking a step back from the seal.

"I'm going to ask the eidolon to come back." Drake lifted his eyebrow at that. It was that easy? "The summoner's horn allows us to communicate with eidolons and wild animals." Now both of Drake's eyebrows were high on his forehead. He'd known about talking to the eidolons that way, through his somewhat fuzzy memories of Earth and the clearer memories of his childhood in Caledonia and the tales he'd heard there. Talking to wild animals wasn't something he'd remembered. "I'll break the seal now." Drake took a couple more steps back, looking to Dagger.

Dagger was a summoner without a horn, so she couldn't do things that Eiko could do. On the other hand, she had more power over the eidolons than Eiko would because she was older. The little girl could possibly grow up to be a powerful summoner, maybe even more powerful than the princess of Alexandria. Though only if she decided to stop with the half-baked theatrics that she was currently doing.

"By the light of the spirits, I call upon thee!" Drake bit back a sigh, shifting his weight. He didn't know if the others were impressed, but he sure wasn't. "Answer my call, wherever your soul may be!" the seal rippled emerald in front of Eiko, and a ruby fell into her hands. Drake's mouth twitched at the hidden irritation on the girl's face. It sounded like she had been planning on talking for a bit longer. "Finished! We can go inside now." Despite that, the girl did seem to be chirpy and pleased with herself.

Drake moved to the stone pillars that had been behind the seal and scaled the tallest one, perching on it to get a better look at the landscape before them. His eyes were already picking out where the roots to either side of their pathway extended to the trunk of the massive tree.

"Thanks!" Zidane scrabbled up another pillar to see what had Drake's attention. His tail waved as he carefully balanced himself, standing instead of crouching like Drake was.

"Was that the spell to break the seal?" Vivi and Dagger had decided to stay below with Eiko. They weren't the ones that had to worry about finding a path, after all.

"Nope." Eiko giggled a little, and Drake rolled his eyes. As he'd thought, the little summoner had decided to be theatrical. She loved to have attention on her. Despite her being the last of the summoners, besides Dagger, the archer doubted that she would be receiving the Stellazio until she'd matured a fair bit. "All I do is focus my thoughts into my horn." Drake glanced to Zidane before sliding backwards off of his own pillar, landing on the ground again with a soft thump.

"Then why were you...?" Drake turned to look at the three mage-types, smiling a little. Vivi was still learning a great deal about people, so he couldn't pick out when someone was doing something on purpose quite as quickly. He was learning, though.

"That was just for show!" Zidane snickered, having turned to face the others, sitting on his pillar. Drake turned his head a little to look up at him. Vivi was adjusting his hat to hide his embarrassment. "The spell is actually much longer, but the eidolon asked me to hurry it up." Drake figured that the spell was actually for those summoners that didn't have the sheer willpower to just break the seal outright like Eiko had.

"Alright, let's go!" Drake shifted to the side a bit as Zidane slid off of his pillar, his tail flicking with a flourish as he balanced himself on the ground. He had an uneasy look on his face for some reason. Drake lifted an eyebrow at that, wondering what thought had passed through his head.

They started down the path that was right next to the pillar that Drake had been perched on. The archer stuck close, allowing Zidane to act as point while he took up the rear, one of his cheaper arrows already set to his bowstring, just in case he needed to pick off some flying monster. He was careful to not look down, though he kept an eye on the children in case they fell. The root they were on wasn't as wide as Drake would have preferred.

The only monsters that they really encountered looked like skeletal version of the risen dead that Zidane, Vivi, and Drake had encountered in Gizamaluke's Grotto. They still had bits of leathered flesh hanging off of their bones, making them look even more unpleasant to look at.

"Aaahh!" Drake rushed forwards as what he thought was another root grabbed Eiko and Vivi off of the one they were on. He kicked the 'root' as he grabbed the kids, and stumbled as he got his footing on the one that they'd been traveling on again. Vivi was already casting a fire spell at the thing.

"What is that?!" Drake knelt to set down the kids, and took his arrow and bow from Dagger, who had caught them when he'd leapt to rescue the younger two. Zidane was clambering onto whatever it was, after something or other. "Zidane!"

The thief was on his way back when the creature moved, hoisting him into the air. Drake blinked at the silhouette of the monster before the sound of breaking glass made him look to Zidane. All five limbs were flailing as he fell towards the thin root that they'd been trekking on.

"Dammit, that was a Soft that it made me lose..." Drake blinked at the announcement of what Zidane had tried to steal, and looked to the monster...or rather, where it had been. It had withered and drooped, starting from a patch that still glittered wetly from the Soft potion that Zidane had lost.

"Uhm...Looks like that actually killed it, though." Zidane blinked at Drake as he turned around, and looked at where Drake was pointing with his arrow. The archer was blushing a little because of the fact that the monster reminded him a little of a certain...piece of anatomy.

The thief cracked up at that, the grin that managed to stay on his face past his laughter telling the archer that he saw the same thing in the monster. Drake scratched the back of his head as Dagger asked Zidane if he was alright. The monkey-tailed man waved to show he was fine, and got his laughter under control, leading everyone along again. Though Drake was certain that he was still snickering under his breath.

They finally passed into the shadow of the Iifa Tree, and Drake sighed as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead, his eyes relaxing from how he had been squinting against the sun. Zidane called a halt, seeing as they had reached a wider part of the root. Dagger and the children were happy to have a chance to sit and catch their breath. Drake took the chance to gulp down a bit of water from his canteen.

"It's a lot warmer down here than it was on the mountains..." Drake glanced to Dagger as she looked at him, smiling lopsidedly. Eiko didn't seem to be having a problem with the heat, but everyone else was, after the chill that they'd encountered on the mountain.

"The higher the elevation, the cooler it is. Especially on this continent. Though, I suppose the mountains get more rain than the lowlands do." He looked to Eiko, and got up from his crouch with a sigh. "We should be moving again, though." Zidane nodded as he got up as well.

They walked for a while longer until they started to walk into the Mist itself. Drake sighed a little as Eiko started to whimper a little and shake, walking forward to kneel next to her. She ended up insisting that he carry her on his back. They descended into the Mist, though, and the six-year-old eventually adjusted to the claustrophobic feeling that the low-lying cloud gave everyone.

The archer had a bit of a hard time making sure that his footing was good enough that he and his passenger wouldn't fall. Finally, the little girl decided that she should just walk on her own, and slipped off of his back. It made things easier on both of them.

They reached a place where the roots converged and covered what looked like part of an old building. Drake knelt as he stepped onto the platform, his fingertips brushing over the intertwined root tendrils. The rest were looking down as they stepped onto the circular platform as well. Drake could just barely make out some old paint past all the debris.

"What's this...?" Drake glanced to Zidane, and smirked a little as he saw his blood brother had turned his attention from what was underfoot to what was above their heads. "Looks old...I wonder who built it?" Drake shrugged a bit as he stood again, and walked to the far side of the platform, deliberately avoiding stepping on the detached part in the middle.

"This way! Hey, are you alright?" Drake blinked as Zidane darted past him, kneeling down to look at a tangle of roots, and turned to look at Eiko. She and Vivi had been lagging behind, so they had just arrived on the platform.

"A-aren't you guys scared of heights...?" Drake smiled faintly at Vivi's complaint, but decided to let Eiko care for him. After all, they had bonded quite nicely. And it meant that he didn't have to worry every second about what they were up to.

"Gosh, you look so helpless." Drake rolled his eyes at Eiko's announcement, and turned his attention up. This was a great place for flying monsters to nest, after all. "Why don't you stay here and let us handle the rest?" The archer closed his eyes to keep from glaring at the little girl. She was treating Vivi like he was the one that hadn't been through a war, and it was really starting to grate on his nerves.

"No, I'm going with you guys!" Vivi sounded insulted now, and Drake opened his eyes again to glance at Zidane as he walked towards the central part of the platform. "I have to." Drake smiled in Vivi's direction before moving to Zidane's side, looking down at the triangle-marked circle. It was the only part of the entire platform that the root tendrils hadn't spread to.

"Then don't leave my side, okay?" Drake rolled his eyes at that. He was fairly sure that Vivi would do so, but only because Eiko needed more protection than he did. After all, the little black mage could sling spells that no one else in the group could. Eiko, while she was a summoner, had much the same skill set as Dagger. The entire group was more than a little squishy, seeing as Zidane was the only one that was a melee fighter. Drake could take a few hits, but he got hurt pretty easily.

"Eiko, do you know anything about this place?" Drake glanced to Vivi as Eiko darted to Zidane's side, an absurdly happy look on her face. Looked like she still had a crush on the monkey-tailed thief.

"Nope. This is my first time inside the Iifa Tree." That didn't stop her from leaning against Zidane's shoulder, seeing as he was still kneeling. Drake flicked his eyes at Dagger, and sighed under his breath as he saw the miffed look that flashed across her face. Zidane didn't seem to have noticed, frowning at the central design.

"This place looks ancient..." Drake nodded as he looked down at it, thinking. The fact that there was a triangle didn't really surprise him that much. The number three was considered to be sacred all over the world. Well, both worlds. And as the Iifa Tree was likely what he'd known as the Life Tree all his life, it only made sense that the number was here, seeing as most cultures split life up into three stages, childhood, adulthood, and seniorhood.

Zidane reached out and rapped his knuckles on the central circle. Drake stiffened as the entire circle glowed softly. He heard gasps from the rest, so he was pretty sure that everyone else had noticed as well. Zidane hesitated before poking the circle again, once more getting a glow from it. Drake leaned forwards, peering at the design more carefully. Much to his annoyance, he knew that he should know the design from somewhere, but his memories of Earth were getting foggier and foggier.

"Alright, then!" Drake blinked at Zidane as his blood brother stood and moved to get onto the circle. Panic briefly flashed through him before the memory that this was an elevator of some sort welled up from somewhere in his mind. "I'll be fine. Don't worry!" Drake glanced at Dagger, whom Zidane was grinning confidently at. She looked more concerned than curious.

Zidane hopped onto the circle and looked down as it glowed. There was a moment where nothing happened, and then the lift shuddered underneath him and started to lower. Just when Drake thought that it was too far for Zidane to keep from going down all the way, his blood brother jumped and grabbed hold of the edge next to Drake's feet. He twisted and looked down, bracing himself against the wall of the lift with his feet.

"...Here it comes again." Drake watched as Zidane waited for the lift to be near enough for him to jump again if he needed to, and knelt as his blood brother pushed off the wall to stumble on the still-rising lift. Once it was back up to where it had been originally, he casually walked off of it, acting as though he hadn't stumbled at all. Drake simply shook his head with a slight smirk at that.

"It works. I'm gonna see where it takes me. I'll call you guys over if everything is alright." Drake's smile dropped at that, and he propped the hand that wasn't filled by his bow on his hip. Typical Zidane, wanting to do things all on his own.

"Not alone you're not." That got a blink and a sheepish smile pointed at the archer. The Caledonia native noticed Dagger and Vivi nod out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm coming with you!" Drake looked to Eiko for her squeak, and sighed a little. It was more trouble looking after a little six-year-old girl than he'd anticipated. Then again, he'd been under the impression that girls listened better than boys did.

"Me, too." Then again, maybe it was a Summoner thing, seeing as Dagger liked to be rebellious just as much as Eiko did. The princess had decided to sneak on board the Prima Vista, after all and run away from Alexandria.

"M-me, too." Vivi seemed to still be dealing with his fear of heights. Drake hadn't considered that a problem, what with them traveling by airship, crossing bridges over gorges, and hanging out in a treetop settlement for a week. But it looked like the little mage needed someone to keep an eye out for him still.

"Okay, we'll all go." Drake snickered a bit at Zidane's slight pout, and nudged him as he moved to stand near the edge of the circle where he wouldn't bump into anyone. That got him a slight glare as the thief scratched the back of his head.

The other four hopped onto the circle as Drake stepped onto it, angling his bow so that it wouldn't bump into the edge of the shaft. He had to spread his legs a bit to keep his balance as the lift shuddered to life underneath them, and looked up as the root-crossed sky shrank above them.

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**End notes:** Stropers are such innuendos, I swear. They're phallic, and can be killed by a Soft potion. You do the math. Not to mention the tentacles.

The song that Drake sung in this chapter is called Bedlam Boys. I'm not rightly sure who wrote it, but if you look it up on Youtube there's like a dozen or so different versions of it, all by different groups. The wording can differ from version to version, but I picked the one that I felt worked best in context. Oh yeah. A doxy is a prostitute, pretty much. In case anyone was wondering.

I'll see about uploading the next chapter tomorrow. If I don't fry my brain working on that damned research paper, that is.

**_Read, review, and enjoy!_**


	19. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Authoress' Notes:** Yeesh, I keep being so forgetful. Well, I finished my finals paper, and handed it in on time (seven page paper, plus resources in a matter of a couple of days. I rock.) and then started to work on a short story that I'm writing to amuse myself and my friends. If I particularly like it, I may end up uploading it on here. That's a big if, though.

Anywho, there's only three more chapters in this section after this particular chapter, and then I have to sit my lazy bum down and force myself to work on the third book. I'm a bit stuck, and avoiding working on it. But hey, at least I'm not having to force myself to stop writing to work on homework for a couple weeks or so. Then I'll have two classes to juggle.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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**Tears of the World chapter 19: Down the Rabbit Hole**

Drake looked up as the lift continued to descend, and sighed a little as he saw the sky turn into a distant dream. He wobbled a little as the device stopped suddenly, and looked around, paying attention to where the lift had taken them. Zidane stepped off first, looking a little hesitant at putting his weight on what looked like a mix between a giant shed snake skin and a petrified spiderweb.

It held Zidane's weight well enough, so the rest of them followed suit. Drake glanced behind them and blinked as he saw that the lift was staying put. Apparently it only activated either way when someone was on it. Though why it had returned when Zidane jumped off before it descended all the way, he had no idea.

The archer had to trot to catch up to the others, being careful of his footing. He slung his bow off of his back and into his hand, bringing up the rear behind Vivi. Zidane made a few stops to pick up items from where they'd caught in the web of...whatever they were walking on.

"Woah!" Drake paused at the shout, lagging a bit behind everyone again, and trotted forwards to see what had startled Zidane. He immediately had an arrow on his bowstring, taking aim at the huge zombie that was threatening his friends. It wasn't humanoid, that was for sure, and the skeletal wings on its back plus the large, rotting tail told him it wasn't a griffin.

The arrow that he shot distracted it, and Dagger cast a healing spell on it, which melted part of its body, causing it to screech. A fireball finished it off, causing it to topple off of the pathway and into the abyss. Drake trotted to catch up, disappointed that he couldn't retrieve his arrow, though he was glad that it had been one of the ones that didn't have a metal tip.

"Everyone alright?" Zidane looked to the two children they were traveling with before looking at Drake and Dagger. All four of them nodded back to him, inching away from the edge of the root-like structure that they'd been walking on. "Good. Let's get going again, then." Drake waited for everyone else to start walking again before following suit, keeping his quiver of untipped arrows open, just in case. With a seemingly bottomless pit, he wasn't about to risk losing any of his good arrows.

"Looks like you're the fighter to rely on with those zombies, Dagger." The princess turned her head a little as she heard Drake's words. "You did more damage to that dragon zombie than Vivi did." A faint chuckle came from Zidane, all the way out in front, as he glanced over his shoulder to catch what his blood brother was saying.

"It's because healing magic is holy, and zombies are harmed by holy energy." Drake scratched at his eyebrow at the explanation, having not been expecting one. Least of all from Eiko, though he figured that she'd have known best, living in the general area and all.

"I knew that." A laugh from Zidane drifted back as they moved onto a root that spiraled around a beam of light coming up from below. Everyone's faces were tinged a faint green as they made sure to keep from falling or slipping, especially on the steeper sections.

"Ooh!" Everyone stopped at Eiko's squeal. Zidane even turned around to see what the little girl was up to. Drake couldn't see, as Dagger was in the way, but he did see the flute that she waved in the air. "Yay, a flute!" The archer tilted his head to the side.

"Why is a flute down here...?" Immediately, he started to wonder if they were the first group to ever venture down into the depths of the Iifa Tree. Maybe the zombies they'd been fighting where all that was left of the other groups? That was a rather morbid thought.

"Good question. Ask another." Drake snorted at Zidane's quip, and ran his hand over his bow to reassure himself that it was still in working condition. "Oh wait, this is a dead end." Drake sighed at Zidane's announcement, but part of him was wondering why they hadn't heard that one before. "Everyone back up, there was a fork earlier." Drake turned around and pulled himself back up the steep incline they'd just gone down until he was at the fork.

The archer paused there, looking around for a moment before helping Dagger up onto the slightly wider area. Eiko and Vivi both needed help from both ends, Zidane boosting them and Drake pulling them up the drop. Zidane certainly didn't need any help getting up to the new path, though.

The root they were on led them to a rocky outcrop in a bright green hole in the earth quickly enough. Drake and the others gaped at what was in front of them. Not the hole itself, but a root that had grown vertically. There was some sort of thing wrapped around it, with a leaf-shaped pod resting on their rock. Drake remembered himself long enough to glance at Eiko as she neared that pod.

"Everything up there looked withered." Zidane sounded a bit hushed, as though he didn't want to speak too loudly. Drake tilted his head back to look up, noticing that the structures they'd been walking on looked like they had once been whatever it was that was growing around that root. "This place looks totally different. It's so bright I can't see the bottom." Drake looked to his blood brother and saw that he was kneeling near the edge of the rock, peering down at the bottom. He moved next to him and carefully did the same.

The root stretched down towards that green light for what seemed like eternity, the spiraling root-thing making a regular pattern that played with the archer's eyes. Or maybe it was the slightly pulsing light that was doing that. Either way, he backed up quickly.

"I guess we should try to get to the bottom of this!" Drake gave the thief an odd look. The monkey-tailed man was backing up from the edge, brushing his hands off with a bright, confident smile.

"And how are we going to manage that? It took us a while just to get here from the surface, remember. Even with that lift." Zidane frowned a little at the archer, disappointed that he wasn't eagerly trying to help him in this particular venture. The thief hadn't been spooked by the zombies the way his blood brother had been.

"Hey, Zidane. I found something here." The argument was cut short before it could really begin, thanks to Eiko. They all turned to look at her, standing next to the pod that was sticking out of the structure in front of them.

"Hmm? Maybe it'll move like the last one." Drake rolled his eyes at Zidane's joke, but was walking over to investigate the pod himself. The little purple-haired girl linked her hands behind her with a small smile.

"It didn't move when I got on." All three adults sent the child an exasperated look. They knew she was used to being alone and doing things for herself, but there were certain things that children shouldn't do.

"You stood on it?!" Eiko nodded to Zidane's question, and blinked as the thief sighed and planted his hand over his face. "Just like a kid, I guess..." Drake chuckled and grinned at his blood brother.

"You forget, she is six years old." The archer leaned over and pressed his hand against the pod, ignoring the glare that he was getting from the child. He knew why he was getting glared at, too. It was because he had reminded both her and Zidane of the age gap. Not that Zidane had really needed a reminder. All he saw in the child was someone to safeguard, not a potential romance option.

"Why don't we all try getting on?" Drake glanced to Eiko, his hand still on the pod. It felt like stone, but was still textured like a leaf. It was even warm. The archer shrugged and pulled himself onto the leaf, helping Vivi and Eiko onto it with his free hand, his bow and the hand holding it pressed onto the pod's surface.

The moment Zidane got onto the pod, Drake felt a hum go through it. They barely had time to react before the thing started to lift. They all looked at each other to try to figure out what was going on, Zidane grinning in his excitement. Then they started to drop, quickly.

Drake bent closer to the 'floor' as the wind pushed at his hair, only to stand as he felt the wind subside. The vertical tunnel was still whipping past them at a dizzying speed, though, much to his confusion. He wasn't the only one to have fallen to the ground, though. Everyone else had as well.

"Woah! That's weird. There's no wind..." Drake heaved Vivi to his feet and then moved to help Dagger up. "I guess that glowing powder is stopping the wind somehow." Drake cast a bemused look over his shoulder at Zidane's words, and blinked as he noticed that everything was indeed covered in a glowing powder. Including them. It seemed to be coming from the pod itself.

"That's gonna be a pain to wash off, I bet. Let's hope none of us grow any fungi on us." A short laugh came from Zidane, who turned to look at him. Vivi looked worried at Drake's words, but none of the others were.

"There's a fungus among us?" Drake rolled his eyes, and sat at the farther end of the pod, crossing his legs and setting his bow across his knees. "You okay, Dagger?" Drake sighed and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in to try to calm himself. He'd make a poor Chosen if he couldn't even control his own emotions. Though why he was frightened by this, he couldn't even explain.

"Yes, I'm fine. I wonder where we're going?" Drake frowned. He was more concerned with how they were going to get back. If they had to take this lift thing again, he wasn't going to be a happy camper. Something about it made his stomach turn.

"Yeah, me too..." Now Zidane sounded like he was starting to take things seriously again. Finally. Though, Drake did usually join Zidane in his excitement for most things. He just wasn't now.

"Maybe Mog could tell us something!" Drake turned and leaned to the side in order to see what Eiko was doing. The girl's attention was only on her moogle, though. "What do you feel, here inside the Iifa Tree?" Drake rolled his eyes a little and turned to staring at the walls of the tunnel. The moogle made a series of noises, sounding more and more agitated. "Really? Alright...Thanks!"

"Well, what's the word?" Drake scratched at his chin with his right hand, grumbling to himself about how he hated being forced to sit around and wait. Even though he was a ranged fighter, there was only so much that he could do.

"Um, Mog senses a lot of life beneath us." Drake paused at that, his mind getting swept up with so many thoughts that he was left with a headache. Most of those thoughts seemed to slip right through his fingers as they came from the part that still remembered Earth. There was something about that statement that was a clue about what was coming, but he couldn't pin down what it was that they were heading towards. "Moogles are faeries, so they sense life everywhere, but Mog says there's a whole lot here!" Drake twisted again to look at Eiko. Moogles were faeries? That wasn't something he remembered ever hearing.

"I wonder if agents of Kuja are down there..." Drake sighed a little at that thought, and ruffled his hair. He was starting to be uncomfortable, seeing as the farther they went, the warmer he started to feel. He seemed to be the only one affected by it, though.

"But what's the connection between Kuja and the Mist?" Drake stretched carefully, easing his muscles, especially his legs. They'd been doing a lot of steep inclines on the way down, and now that he couldn't move around very much, he could feel them start to cramp.

"Incoming!" Drake started at Eiko's yell, and scooted back from the edge of the pod before lurching to his feet, turning to see what was attacking them. Before he could so much as get an arrow out of his quiver, though, Dagger and Eiko had annihilated all of the zombies, so he sat down again with a sigh. "There are so many strange monsters here in the Iifa Tree!" At least Eiko was looking at the experience in a happy light.

"Could the Mist be causing it?" Drake looked to Dagger as she asked the question, sitting cross-legged with his bow in his lap again. He supposed that Dagger had read more than any of them on theories of what the Mist actually was, and its properties, but Drake had a feeling that none of it could explain what they were going to find.

"Beats me. The Evil Forest and Gargan Roo had unique monsters, too." Drake blinked at that, and turned to look at Zidane. That movement got Dagger and Zidane to look at him.

"That's right, you guys fought something while I was trying to keep from bleeding too much, didn't you?" The archer rubbed at the back of his head, his fingers sliding over both the scars he had there. "All of that is still really fuzzy." Zidane chuckled a little, but his eyes still flashed with worry for a moment or two.

"But if the Mist comes from this tree, how come it only appears on Zidane's continent?" Drake rubbed an eye for a moment, aggravated by the fact that Eiko was once again ignoring the fact that Zidane wasn't the most important person in the world.

"I guess there's something that channels the Mist?" Zidane didn't sound too sure. Something clicked for Drake, though in a very distant part of his brain. While he tried to hunt it down, Dagger spoke up.

"Yes, but the question is, why?" The princess trailed off, thinking. Drake didn't look up until someone jerked _him_ out of his thoughts. Zidane chuckled at the look on his face before he stood up.

"You alright? You didn't even flinch when that last batch of zombies attacked." Drake looked clueless for a moment, and looked around. Sure enough, there were several piles of dust scattered on the pod. He hadn't even heard the fight.

"I was just thinking. I didn't know that I was thinking that hard, though." Drake glanced to Vivi. He did remember hearing about a factory in Dali that made black mages, though. At least, he thought he did. He might have been remembering it from his Earth memories, though.

"You've got a lot on your mind lately. I think it's pretty reasonable." Drake blinked at that. He had been getting lost in thought a lot lately. Then again, he had a lot of thoughts that needed sifting through. "Anyway, we're close enough that I can see the bottom." Drake looked at the edge as Zidane jerked his thumb towards it. He moved close enough that he could see over, and sighed. They were still spinning around the root fast enough that he was surprised his head wasn't spinning as well.

"It's so deep!" Drake hummed a bit and looked up, sighing as he saw that he couldn't even see a pinprick of light from the sky. While he was underground, there was so much room around that he didn't feel useless, though being one of five people on this leaf thing was feeling a bit cramped. That didn't mean he was comfortable, though.

"Dunno what's down there, but we'll find out soon." Drake ruffled his hair again, frowning as he felt sticky without sweating. He shifted his shoulders, trying to get rid of the smothered feeling he was getting. No one else seemed to be feeling off. "Drake, you alright?" The archer looked at his blood brother and rolled his shoulders again.

"Mist is getting to me, is all. Every part of me is screaming to run to the surface as fast as possible." Dagger frowned at that, and Drake took a deep breath in, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll manage." The pod lurched, and stilled, making them all stumble a little. "Looks like we've arrived."

Drake got off first, and almost stumbled down the irregular, but natural green crystalline steps that he'd landed on. He felt much better for moving, but his feeling of dread wasn't fading in the least. The light tinged everything green, giving the whole area an eerie appearance. Not that the structure needed any help from the light.

Everything was draped in these sickly green strings, reflecting the light that was coming from below. What the archer had thought was a root was in fact only the upper part of the structure that they were now standing on. The gnarled wood curved around and over itself, leading down to a fairly wide platform below the one that they were all standing on now.

"Come with me!" Drake glanced at Eiko, but she wasn't talking to him. Instead, she was addressing Vivi, much to everyone's relief. Better that she bond with someone her own age than go chasing after Zidane. "Are you gonna make a helpless little girl like me go all by herself!?" Drake rolled his eyes, but Vivi obediently trotted over to join the young girl as she bounced down another flight of stairs.

"Wait! There might be some monsters lurking there!" Drake smiled a little at Zidane's concern. At least he was starting to take his leadership duties seriously. It had taken a while for the thief to even accept that he was the leader.

"Say, Zidane..." Drake bit his lip to hide a grin as he noticed Dagger starting a conversation with Zidane, and padded towards the second staircase to keep watch over the children. After all, he wasn't the one that the little girl had a crush on, and therefor wouldn't be harassed by her attempts at flirting. Distantly, he heard Dagger ask Zidane if he sensed anything.

The kids stopped to peer over the edge at the green water below, so Drake paced around, an arrow on his bowstring but not pulled back just yet. Feeling that there was something _there_ all around him was setting him on edge far more than it should have. He supposed that part of it was the fact that his now-unreliable memories of Earth were screaming something at him.

Zidane finished the conversation he was having with Dagger and walked over to Vivi and Eiko. He looked at Drake and frowned when he saw that the archer was tense and more than ready to attack anything. The Caledonia native had always seemed to be right in his hunches, though, and that was setting alarm bells off in Zidane's head, too. Though he suddenly remembered that Anastasia had completely blindsided him, which briefly brought a smile to Zidane's face. The archer wasn't infallible. And the thief certainly hoped that he was wrong about there being a fight coming up.

The thief bent over to set his hand on Vivi's shoulder, getting the young black mage to look up at him. The boy adjusted his hat and looked over the edge again, fascinated by what lay below them. Zidane didn't really blame him, seeing as he was fascinated by it as well. This whole area fascinated him. As Dagger had said, it didn't seem like part of a normal tree, almost like a machine.

"You can see some sparkling water down below. It's really pretty." Zidane chuckled a bit at Vivi, sparing a glance down. "Maybe the Mist comes from that water down there?" The thief hummed, his eyes thoughtful. The kid thought a lot more on things like that than most adults did, Zidane was sure, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "So, if the Iifa Tree is the source of the Mist..." The boy trailed off, muttering softly to himself as he pondered.

Zidane left the black mage to his thoughts and moved over to where Drake was, standing at the edge of the platform and facing away from the pod that they'd ridden down. The archer jumped as Zidane's hand landed on his shoulder, and looked at his blood brother. His eyes looked green with the glow from the water below. It didn't seem quite right for that color to be there, but it wasn't eerie or anything.

"You alright? You didn't seem to be this sensitive to Mist back when we were going through Burmecia." Drake sighed, and rolled his shoulders again. He was doing that a lot, Zidane realized. He'd said he was uncomfortable, but Zidane didn't quite understand just how uncomfortable.

"Burmecia was a bit different. The Mist here...It's warmer, and I keep half-hearing things. What's even more aggravating is that every time I concentrate to listen, the sound disappears." Zidane frowned at that, and Drake sighed. "It's unnerving. I'd like to leave as quickly as possible." Zidane sighed a little at the pointed look, and nodded.

"We'll leave soon as we've figured out what's going on down here." The archer nodded and turned to look back out over the green, and the thief wandered around some more. He found a few things scattered around, but what got his attention was a piece of armor. He grinned at that briefly, and traded his old armor vest for it. He felt better for it, but the armor was a fair bit heavier. He was going to have to be careful to not overestimate his own abilities, at least until he got used to it again.

Finally, Zidane figured he'd been avoiding Eiko long enough and walked over to see what she was up to, even though she'd been just steps away when he'd spoken to Vivi. The girl giggled as she looked up at him, clasping her hands behind her and swaying back and forth.

"So, that sparkling water is a living thing? It's so pretty. Zidane, watch it with me!" The thief paused for a moment before shrugging to himself and leaning over the mound that acted as a railing to peer down at the water. After a moment, he noticed that he was getting stared at, and turned to look at Eiko.

"You're not watching the sparkle, are you?" The purple-haired girl blushed a little and giggled. Zidane wasn't sure how to get this girl to stop chasing after him, but she really needed to.

"I was watching the sparkle reflected in your eyes, Zidane." The thief blinked at that, giving the child an odd look. Though, it sort of sounded familiar...

'Is this what I've been putting Dagger through? Ehhh...I'd better go easy on her from now on. Not as fun, being on this side of the chase.' Zidane smiled a little at Eiko, though it was forced, and straightened. Zidane walked back over to Drake, who was now a fair bit back from where he'd been standing before, eyeing the place where he'd been keeping watch.

"It's moving..." Zidane gave Drake an odd look before noticing that the archer was right. The wood itself that made the railing was throbbing slightly. Not by much, but Drake was more than a little unnerved by things at the moment, anyway.

"The whole place is moving. Relax a little. It's not good to be tense." Drake gave his blood brother a slightly aggravated look, getting a grin in return. "Well, anyway, Kuja obviously isn't here. No signs of his lackeys, either." Drake looked at the new armor that Zidane was wearing and lifted an eyebrow. "Found this near what looked like bones." Drake shuddered at that, and put his arrow away to rub at his left forearm.

"Zidane!" Both Drake and Zidane snapped their attention to the kids when Eiko called for the thief. She sounded a little scared. Both men trotted over to see what was wrong, Drake moving his right hand to his quiver. "M-Mog's saying something's coming from above!" Drake pulled an arrow out of his quiver as Zidane looked up to the pod area, where Dagger still was.

"From above?! Dagger, come here! Now!" Drake was a little surprised at the vehemence in the order, but the princess didn't seem to mind being told what to do. She didn't make it down the stairs, though, yelping. Zidane was off and up the stairs in a flash, making sure that she was alright.

"Are you alright?!" Drake glanced to Zidane, and allowed a ghost of a smile cross his face before he stood carefully, looking around. The smile didn't last very long at all.

"I'm sorry! I was just startled. Is something wrong?" Drake blinked at that. Had he imagined that the lower platform lurched? Regardless, the Mist around them was starting to heat up again, as though in warning. Drake shook his head a bit to try to chase off the half-heard whispers that had been bothering him since getting off the pod. This was no time to have his head in a cloud.

"Over there!" Drake turned his attention to Eiko as she darted off, and growled to himself as he chased after her, gently tugging Vivi along, dropping his arrow back into his quiver once again. He had to bite his tongue to keep from scolding the six-year-old girl for running towards danger like that. Much to Drake's dread, she was running right to where the archer had been standing guard earlier. "Look, the wall is moving!"

Drake frowned at the wall, noticing that it was indeed pulsing like the roots in front of the children. His foot came down with a splash, and he looked down at the lightly glowing water that his boot had landed in. It was pooling in between the ridges in the ground, and flowing towards the lower area, where the kids were standing. Looking around, he couldn't find a source for the water, which he found odd. He bent and touched the surface of the liquid, only to jerk his hand away quickly.

"You're right...It's like it's alive!" Drake hurriedly wiped the liquid Mist off of his hand, his skin crawling. The voices were even louder now, but he still couldn't make out any words. By the tone, though, they were warning him about something.

"Eiko! Vivi!" The two children turned around when Drake called their names. Zidane and Dagger charged up to where the three of them were. A glance told Drake that Zidane was now sharing the archer's wariness and want to leave. The Caledonian native was sweating a fair bit now, though it wasn't from fear. The Mist itself seemed to be heating up around them again.

"Zidane! The wall's shaking faster!" Drake shook his hand one last time as he reached for his quiver, then stumbled with a curse dying on his lips as something dropped from above, right in front of them. Whatever it was, it had been big.

"It's here!" Zidane looked to Drake before snapping his attention to the thing that suddenly loomed over them all. Drake noticed that it had the texture of wood, but had an eerie horned face that looked like a twisted version of the Green Man. Its roots twined with the mass in front of the group, stabilizing it.

"_So, it wasn't Kuja._.." Drake stiffened as the thought invaded his mind. He looked up at the thing, noting that instead of shoulders or arms, it had massive protuberances on either side of its head made of stone and covered in moss of some sort. Its 'voice' was booming and loud, drowning out all of the other voices that Drake had been hearing.

"Huh? What's going on? I can hear a voice inside my head!" Zidane turned his head to look at Drake, who nodded. It was the same kind of voice he'd been hearing since they'd arrived. The thief then turned his attention back to the creature that was still looming above them.

"You just said Kuja! Where is he!?" Drake paused as he realized that his arrows weren't exactly going to be doing much damage to this creature. These ones were more designed for taking out things that didn't have a thick skin. If wooden-tipped arrows stuck in this opponent, he'd be awfully surprised.

"_I do not know. Perhaps you could ask the whole-soul here."_ Drake paused in putting his arrow away, staring up at the creature. It was looking directly at him, bending almost in half to do so. For some reason, he knew that the thing was talking about him. Zidane didn't seem to notice the reference to Drake, much to the archer's relief. He had enough confusion stemming from that comment enough.

"What are you doing here!?" Dagger clutched her racket close to her, her legs spread in case she was attacked suddenly. Drake slid his current arrow back into its quiver and capped it, shuffling between his extras to find the one that held his broadhead arrows. There were enough people that used them in the mountains that he'd bartered a bit for them before they'd left.

"Are you the one who makes the Mist!?" Drake glanced down at the liquid Mist that was puddled around their feet as he found the quiver he was looking for and moved it to his right shoulder. He'd have to make his shots carefully to make sure that he didn't lose any over the edge. Not to mention if Zidane was feeling particularly thoughtful, he could go and retrieve a few arrows for the archer.

"_It is not produced...Mist is a by-product of the refining process. It is discharged through the roots."_ Drake looked sharply at the creature, uncapping the quiver and pulling an arrow out to nock it to his bowstring. At least he'd had the time to switch quivers, thanks to the conversation.

"Roots...?" Drake's whisper was ignored, though he was remembering the massive root that he'd perched on one night while they were heading to Burmecia. He'd wondered about what kind of tree it belonged to back then, but he wasn't sure how much he could remember at that point in time.

"Discharged?" Vivi adjusted his hat to make sure that it didn't fly off, craning his head to look up at the creature. It was easily twice as tall as Drake, who already towered over the little black mage. The main difference between that towering was that Drake's presence always felt protective, never dangerous.

"So it's sent through the other continents through the roots, right?" Dagger looked over at Zidane nervously, still clutching her racket to her as though someone would steal it from her. The thief kept his eyes on the strange being that was speaking to them all telepathically.

"But why!? Why would you do that!?" Drake shifted his feet slowly so that he wouldn't fall over if he suddenly needed to loose his arrow. He was standing at the rear of the group, but out of all of them, he was the one that was most ready to fight. After all, he already had an arrow on his bowstring.

"_I contaminate the other continents with Mist to stimulate the fighting instinct."_ Drake narrowed his eyes slightly. Most of the Mist continent was shaped like a bowl, which kept the Mist from dissipating across the ocean, now that he thought of it. The only nation that had a capital engulfed by the Mist was Burmecia, who were known for their elite warriors. _"This, in turn, leads to war among the leaders of nations, and then to the fall of civilization."_ Drake's leather glove creaked slightly as his grip on his arrow increased. _"Kuja merely puts the by-product to a different use."_

Drake's eyes flicked to Vivi for a moment, remembering that the boy had apparently discovered that the other black mages had been created in a factory filled with the Mist. That fact didn't change how Drake saw the boy, though. Not at all.

"A different use!? What is Kuja trying to do!?" Drake blinked at Vivi's shout. The little mage could certainly be loud when he wanted to be. The strange being's head turned to look at the little mage.

"_I cannot lie. Kuja used the waste product to make weapons. Weapons...like yourself."_ Drake scowled at that. The thought that someone as personable as Vivi could have been made irked him. Yes, he'd come to terms with the fact that Vivi hadn't been born like most people, but at the same time, he didn't like the idea. And it seemed like he wasn't the only one feeling the Mist's rage-boost.

"He's really ticking me off! Can I kill him?" Drake glanced to Eiko as she whined at Zidane. He wanted to kill the beast as well, but he wasn't sure if they could. The thief placed one hand on Eiko's head, keeping his eyes on the one taunting them.

"Wait, Eiko. What kind of weapons did Kuja make?" Once again, Drake was surprised by Zidane. Instead of being a loud angry like the rest of them, he was staying calm and reasonable. On the surface, at least, which was what was needed to make sure that the rest of the group kept from going out of control.

"_Kuja called them black mages, dark spawn of the Mist."_ Drake growled a little, and shook his head. The voices that didn't belong to this strange being were screaming at him to attack it, to stop it from whatever it was doing.

"So the factory in Dali was really..." Vivi trailed off, drooping. All that Drake felt was a building rage against Kuja, and, by extension, Anastasia. The man had done nothing but ruin the lives of other people, and she had helped him of her own free will. Heck, the look that Drake had seen in her eyes when she looked at the silver-haired man was almost that of worship!

"_Defeat me, and no more Mist will flow."_ Drake looked up at the creature for a moment before looking at Zidane. The archer may have been the only Chosen in the group, but he was more than willing to take a back seat to his best friend. After all, it wasn't his story that was being written here. Zidane had a larger role to play than the Caledonian archer did. _"And then no more weapons like this puppet here will be made."_

Drake bristled at that. Vivi had a mind of his own. He was no one's puppet. Drake was going to make sure that no one claimed the boy as a puppet. Though...If no more Black Mages would be made, there was still the dilemma facing the Einherjar. Just thinking of that, in the current situation, was giving him a headache.

"_Answer me, puppet. Would you deny your very birth?"_ Now everyone was bristling at the being, even Zidane. It seemed as though the calm was only a façade. The thief shifted so that he was standing in front of the black mage, one hand out as if to protect him, and the other on one of his daggers.

"Why you-" Drake hissed at Zidane, reminding him that he needed to control himself. The thief glanced at the archer and forced himself to relax a little. Vivi was silent, but Drake had a feeling that it was because he was angry. The voices that he kept hearing whispering about his head certainly weren't doing anything to help the Chosen calm down.

"No more!" Drake looked to Vivi for his shout. His fingers relaxed a little on his arrow, but only slightly. Dagger whispered the black mage's name out of concern, her own body relaxing a little. "I won't let you make any more instruments of murder!" Drake smiled a bit at that, and looked up at the creature that reared back a little, seemingly surprised at the little black mage's vehemence.

"Way to go, Vivi! I know it must be hard for you. We can knock off this rat now, right?" A slightly feral smile crossed Drake's face for a moment as he stared up at the being, his eyes scanning it for weak points. Maybe he could take out its eyes?

"Alright! Let's bust him up! Who knows, it might even lure Kuja here!" Drake's hand tensed on his arrow, and his muscles bunched, starting to draw his arrow back. He hoped that Kuja wasn't lured to the Iifa Tree by them killing this thing. He had the feeling that they would need to rest after this fight.

"_I have seen the end of my thousand-year life, and it is not now."_ Drake sneered as his bow creaked under the strain of his drawing arm. _"You cannot stop me."_ Drake closed his eyes and concentrated on his arrow, the metal chilling before frost flowers bloomed across it. Something told him that fire was a bad idea. _"It is futile even to try."_

Drake's eyes opened as he felt the last of the mana he'd been pouring into his arrow slide into place, pulled the string all the way back until his fingers brushed his cheek, aimed for the being's head, and loosed the arrow. A gust of cold wind followed in its wake, which brought brief relief to the sweating archer.

Zidane waited for the arrow to strike the red jewel on the being's forehead before daring forwards and scrambling up its trunk, plucking something out of the twined masses of wood and stuffing it into his pouch before continuing on up to the thing's left 'shoulder'. He swiped at the creature's head, snatching at the arrow embedded in it, only to be sent flying back to the group by a shockwave of energy.

Drake flinched at that shockwave, hearing the voices scream. Some were sad, some were angry, some were furious, and others were hard to place. The archer shook his head again and pulled another arrow out of his quiver, blinking away sweat that was trickling into his eyes. As soon as the fight started, the temperature that he felt skyrocketed.

Another wave of power drew Drake's attention to Vivi, who was glowing softly. Unlike their surroundings, his was a white glow, which tinged everything around them the natural color. The archer had to look away after a second because of how bright the glow was getting. He loosed another shot at the being and looked to Dagger, who had just cast a scanning spell on it.

"It's called the Soulcage. It's weak to fire!" Alarm bells went off in Drake's head at that announcement, and he tensed, looking back to Vivi. Before he could give voice to his instincts, the boy, now wearing a hat that didn't droop, had released a powerful fira spell on the Soulcage.

The Soulcage screamed in pain and fury. Drake cringed at it, but more at the fact that the Mist around him felt like it was _**burning**_, and the fire hadn't even been around him! The tree-like monster was on fire, though, and flailing around. All of a sudden, a memory from Earth hit him like a ton of bricks, and he went pale.

"Shouldn't have done that..." Zidane looked at Drake for the warning, only to have to huddle into himself as fiery winds rushed at them all from the Soulcage. More than one person yelled out in pain at the burns that they got. Drake gritted his teeth at the pain, and bit out a short sentence. "Vivi! Use Blizzard!"

The black mage cast the ice spell as quickly as he could, his staff mostly charcoal now. Dagger vast a Cura spell on everyone, with Eiko whimpering a moment before she did the same. Drake bit back a groan as he pulled an arrow out of his quiver, which was thankfully still intact, and drew back the bowstring, wincing.

Eiko's ditty on her flute ended, and the archer sighed as the healing magic soothed the burns on his right arm before aiming and loosing another arrow at Soulcage. Zidane was gulping down a potion, and the last hints of Dagger's second spell were glinting around Vivi still as he chanted under his breath.

Drake panted a little despite the healing spell, and wiped the sweat out of his eyes, grimacing as he noticed the Mist hadn't cooled any. It still felt like it was cooking him. Another shockwave hit them, and Drake stumbled, his foot turning underneath him. He landed on his knee and hurriedly tried to get back up.

"Drake!" The archer shook his head as he got his feet under him again, glaring at Zidane a little as the thief started towards him. He wasn't even sweating because of how oppressive the Mist was. The blond hesitated for a moment before nodding and lurching towards Soulcage again, his blades spinning slightly as he bounced up to the beast's shoulders again.

"It's almost dead! Just a little longer!" Drake glanced to Dagger for her announcement, and nodded before pulling another arrow out. He concentrated on it, pulling ice magic into it for the cool breeze he'd felt last time. No one was going to risk using fire on that thing again, after that blaze it had set on them.

The archer loosed his arrow just as a fira spell erupted on him. He bit his tongue instead of yelling in pain, and spat out blood once the waves of pain stopped washing over him. He heard frantic flute music and a shout of 'Cura' before two powerful healing spells soothed and wiped away the fresh burns.

As Drake got his feet under him again, he heard a rumble, and blinked as Soulcage fell to the ground before them, the stem that made up his body refusing to stay upright any longer. The archer sighed in relief, looking down at himself.

His armor and clothing was all singed and scorched from the fire attacks. It looked as though the armor that had been handed down to him had once been treated to withstand flame, but the treatment had partially worn off, leaving warped and discolored splotches. His bracer was intact, along with his glove, but the rest of his clothing was going to need to be replaced. He likely also needed to trim his hair to get rid of the singed parts, too.

"Uh oh! Let's get outta here!" Drake looked to Zidane, and then looked up. There was a rumbling that the archer hadn't noticed, but it seemed as though everyone else had. The blond scooped up Eiko, and Drake hoisted Vivi over his shoulder as they all ran back to the pod that they'd ridden down. All that Drake was thinking was that he hoped the thing didn't break down and leave them stranded down in this pit.

The ride up seemed to go much faster, though that might have been simply Drake's perspective, as the feeling of heat on his skin faded the farther up they went. Dagger wasn't convinced that the archer was fine until he peeled off his armor to show her that the skin underneath it was unmarred. He blinked when she pressed her hand against, him, astonished at how much cooler she was than him. Soulcage had singled him out, though, calling him a 'whole-soul'. He'd never heard that phrase before, and it was bound to pester him for quite a while.

Drake brought up the rear as they trooped back up the roots to the lift they'd found on the surface, not even having to reach for an arrow to deal with any of the zombies they encountered. Eiko and Dagger took care of them all before he was needed.

The archer breathed a sigh of relief as the first beam of sunlight hit him again, and had to lift a hand to block out the sun when the lift stopped again. The sun was low in the sky, seeming to set the whole sky aflame. Drake could hardly believe that they'd been underground all day long in a place where the undead were more common than the living, and came out of it mostly unscathed.

"Looks like we're camping tonight..." Zidane ruffled his hair, wincing as the scent of burnt hair seemed to cling to all of them. He really wanted a bath to get rid of the sticky feeling that he always seemed to feel after being in the Mist.

"Mm...Let's hope that no one finds out we're the reason the Mist is gone." Zidane looked at Drake as the archer started to head back to the rim of the crater, frowning with a questioning look. "Remember how many things are powered by it? Including airships?" Zidane winced and rubbed his face.

"Shit." Drake rolled his eyes at his blood brother, and patted him on the shoulder lightly. "I really should have thought of that..." Dagger smiled faintly at Zidane's aggravation that he hadn't thought things through, but she still looked worried.

"People will adjust, I think. It might take a while, but it'll get done." Zidane sighed and nodded, looking to the kids and Dagger before starting down the roots again. A slight tug on Drake's bow made him turn to look down at Eiko, who was using it as a handhold.

"Drake? Are people really gonna be angry that the Mist is gone, even though it was making things worse?" The archer smiled faintly at the six-year old, letting her keep hold of the bow to ensure that she didn't fall off the roots as they followed along after the others.

"Yeah. A lot of the things that people on the Mist Continent take for granted are powered by the Mist. I don't know how long it will take for the Mist to fade, but there will be a lot of people panicking because all of their machines no longer work." Drake was a bit glad that the girl was bothering him with questions rather than pestering Zidane and flirting with him. It was better for his stomach.

"What sorts of machines? What do they do?" The dark-haired archer scratched at his forehead for a moment while figuring out how to answer the girl's question. He was glad to be above ground again, where he could feel the cooler wind ruffling his singed hair.

His explanation ended up taking the rest of the time between leaving the lift and getting back to the side of the crater. Zidane was smirking at him, for some reason, but handed him a canteen full of water once he noticed that the archer was sounding a little hoarse. They turned to look back at the Iifa Tree, and Drake blinked, his eyes widening.

"Well that was fast." Zidane nodded as the others turned to see what the men were looking at. Eiko tried to climb the spire that Drake had perched on that morning, and got a gentle boost from Zidane as he climbed the one next to it again. The Iifa Tree really was quite beautiful, bathed in the light of the setting sun.

"Wow, the air's so clear! The Iifa Tree looks so pretty now." Drake scooped Vivi up and sat him on his shoulder so that the boy could see as well, shifting his bow to his right hand. His muscles complained a little at the use, but he already knew that he was going to be sore, anyhow. "Is the Mist Continent clear now?" Drake glanced up at Eiko, but she was addressing Zidane.

"I don't know. It might be." Drake rolled his eyes a little. Of course they wouldn't know if it was clear yet, they weren't there. He blinked as Vivi tapped him gently on the head, and crouched to let the boy use his own feet again. "Now, let's see if Kuja shows up." Drake sighed at that, and ruffled his hair again. He could feel the tiny beads that dotted the end of each strand, formed by the heat.

"How about we worry about resting up first? I don't know about you guys, but it's nearing nightfall now, and I'm in serious need of rest." Zidane and Dagger looked to Drake as he stretched and cracked his neck before looking to each other and nodding.

"Sounds good to me. You've got the tent still, though." Drake blinked at that, grinned, and then started to dig in his pouch. He pulled the package in question out and handed it to Zidane before helping Vivi put rocks into a ring to keep the fire from escaping them. Dagger and Eiko were looking for dry wood that was small enough for them to carry back already.

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**End notes:** And that's it for this chapter! This was the first part of what I wrote for Camp NaNoWriMo (I stalled around 30k words, sadly. Didn't get a win this time.) so there may be a few continuity errors. In case anyone didn't know, this entire story isn't beta'd. None of my stories are. I could probably use one, buuuut I'm just gonna muddle along on my own without.

**_Read, enjoy, and review!_**


	20. Rumble in the Ruins

**Authoress' Notes:** Part two of this update! Yeah, I've decided to just upload the rest of this in one go. I have all the pieces sitting here, after all.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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**Chapter 20: Rumble in the Ruins**

Drake groaned as he woke. His whole body felt like it had been used for target practice by Helgigars' batting techniques. His back cracked as he sat up, much to his chagrin, but that was the most that it did to try to stop him from moving.

"Sounds like you're stiff." Drake blinked at Zidane as the thief poked his head into the tent. He gave him a bland look as he slipped out of the tent.

"I certainly am. I don't even know why you're not as stiff as I am." Zidane chuckled again as he crouched by the banked fire to prod it back into life. Drake tried to do so, and fell flat on his back. Thankfully, he wasn't wearing his quivers on his back. "Tch." Zidane snickered a little again.

"Having some trouble there?" Drake glared at Zidane a little as he pushed himself back up. Eiko had figured out how to renew anti-magic charms the night before, so they hadn't had to bother with keeping watch. No one had really been fit for it.

"I'll be fine once I've stretched a bit. I saw Vivi asleep still, but are the girls still asleep?" Zidane nodded, and Drake sighed a little, rubbing at his face. He was still far too tired, and the sun was actually up. "I guess we're playing the waiting game, then? Sit here and wait until Kuja shows up?" Zidane stretched slightly, on the other side of the fire from the archer.

"Yup. Seems like he and Soulcage at least knew of each other, and with the Mist fading, he's sure to know that something's up over here. If he wants to keep making Black Mages, he'll have to come here to try and fix things. When he does, we'll be waiting for him." Drake drank some from his canteen, closing his eyes again.

"Mm...I hope he doesn't arrive for another couple of days. I'll need that long to recover, at least." Zidane was quiet, and Drake opened his eyes to look at him. The thief was frowning and looking thoughtful.

"Soulcage called you a whole-soul...What does that mean?" Drake sighed and ran his hands over his face again. He groaned a little and bent forwards, his back popping softly. Zidane looked a bit concerned by the reaction.

"I don't know. There's so much that's going on around me that I don't know, and I'm _sick of it_." Drake slid his fingers through his hair and tugged on it slightly, leaning backwards until he was laying flat on the ground again. "Just as I was starting to think that I understood myself, something else pops up and confuses the heck out of me!" The lanky man heaved another sigh and let his hands flop to the ground on either side of him. "If this is par for the course for Chosen, I'm going to be pissed, because Sab and Ed don't seem to be as confused as I am."

Zidane chuckled a little, and Drake tilted his head to the side to glare at him. The thief was leaning back with his legs crossed in front of him, resting his weight on his arms. He had a small grin on his face, much to Drake's ire, but it wasn't a mean grin.

"I think you'll end up understanding yourself way better than any other Chosen ever has, at this rate. I guess now's not the best time to be worrying about this, though. We need you to have a clear head when Kuja finally shows up." Drake nodded, and turned his head to the side as he heard someone coming out of the tent. Vivi adjusted his hat as he stepped out of the tent and blinked at the men.

"Morning, Vivi. How'd you sleep?" The black mage moved to Drake's side and sat down. He was moving stiffly as well, and didn't seem to think anything of Drake stretching as the three of them talked and waited for the girls to wake up. They didn't begrudge the duo any extra sleep. After all, it was thanks to them that they'd managed to get out of the Iifa Tree as intact as they had. If it hadn't been for the two white mages, they'd have been in a lot of trouble more than once.

"Zidane...Did I do the right thing?" Drake blinked out of his thoughts at that, turning his head to look at Vivi. The boy was looking only at the softly crackling fire, though. The archer couldn't even see his face, as his scorched and tattered hat was covering his face completely. Said hat was adjusted in what Drake knew was a nervous gesture. "It said that black mages are made from the Mist, right? When I thought about how other black mages were being made for war..." Drake shifted his shoulders, wincing a little as they popped. "I didn't want that to happen, no matter what."

There was a bit of silence, and Drake shifted to lay on his back, cushioning his head with his hands. His eyes found a cloud overhead and tracked it, watching it as it grew. It was a habit from when he was younger, on Gaia, at least, to ponder things while watching clouds.

"Now, there'll be no more new black mages." Drake hummed in response to Vivi. The archer had been filled in on the limited lifespan of the black mages, and the little mage had been surprised that Drake hadn't reacted. The archer had simply replied that it was the case with humans, too. They simply stopped once they were older. The only difference was the time between being made, or born, for humans, and the time of death. "I think they'll hate me."

The Caledonian native frowned and sat up at that, stiffly moving his legs so that they were crossed in front of him again. "No, they won't." The mage blinked up at the tall archer, the brim of his tattered hat bending enough that Drake made a mental note to buy him a new one sometime. The poor thing had been in existence since before the black mage had jumped on board the Prima Vista! "Listen to me. Listen to your heart. You were listening to it yesterday, during that fight, so listen to it now. The black mages in that village respect you. They wouldn't want you to beat yourself up over something that they don't know the details of." Zidane nodded, smiling slightly. The little black mage, on the other hand, was staring at the archer with something along the lines of awe.

"Do you really think so? Do you think...Do you think they'll understand?" Drake nodded. So did Zidane, but the black mage wasn't looking at him. The thief looked a little relieved that he wasn't the one being looked too for guidance this time.

"Of course! They're your clan. If there's one thing that family knows to do, it's stick together. Even if they aren't related by blood, if the bonds are strong enough, they're family. And from what I saw, you bonded with the other black mages fast." The boy bowed his head a little at Drake's words. For a moment, he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing.

"Right. Thanks, Drake." The archer smiled, partially in relief, and partially at the fact that he'd helped the black mage understand something. He liked helping people, especially those that he saw as friends. The little black mage certainly felt more like a younger brother than a friend these days, though.

Dagger was up first, of the two girls, and blinked as she saw the boys talking amongst each other fairly quietly around the fire. Zidane's face lit up as he saw her, which caused Drake to turn and look up at her. They all looked a little scorched, from Zidane's tail to Vivi's hat, and Drake's everything. Dagger had to admit that the archer looked a little silly, with everything scorched but still acting like nothing was wrong.

"Morning." Dagger smiled as she moved to sit on the opposite side of the fire from Vivi, yawning softly. Drake had his armor off and was trying to remove as much soot from it as he could, but it was obviously not going to be doing much protecting anymore. Zidane glanced to him on occasion, frowning a little with worry. After all, they were planning on fighting Kuja soon, and the Chosen of the group was without armor.

"Mog? Mog!" Drake blinked at Eiko's call, and turned to see the little moogle zipping past them. He lurched to his feet with a wince, his arms in particular complaining their use in pushing him upright. Eiko darted after the moogle, much to everyone's aggravation.

The girl stopped before she got too far, thankfully, so they didn't leave the camp completely unattended. The archer blinked as he saw two moogles, though, and only one had the pale yellow-orange pompom that marked it as Mog.

"Moco!?" Drake slowed to a walk as he neared Eiko and the moogle. He had obviously traveled to join them, as his cream fur was covered in dirt and dust. He was panting, so the archer offered the moogle his half-empty canteen. The creature drained it, careful to not spill any water. "What's the matter? Why did you come all this way?" Drake frowned a little, looking in the direction of Madain Sari and trying to figure out how long ago the moogle must have left to arrive.

Drake knew that moogles were able to speak in their own language as well as common, but he'd never heard the moogle language before. Eiko seemed to understand it easily, though, and jumped, her eyes wide and her face paling a little. She whimpered a little before visibly pulling herself together and nodding.

"Okay, I'll be right back!" The moogle nodded as well, handing the canteen back to the archer. The man slipped it back into his pouch. He bowed slightly towards Eiko and stretched his impossibly tiny wings, taking off with them, landing occasionally. Drake thought for a moment that it must have been like skipping for them, only more efficient. The six-year old turned to look at Zidane and Drake, trying to keep her fear of whatever from showing in her face.

"You guys are going to wait here for Kuja, right? I gotta go back to the village!" Drake paused, and looked to Zidane as he looked to the archer. They nodded, agreeing with each other. They weren't going to let the girl leave on her own.

"Wait, Eiko! What's up?" The girl blinked, stopping from the trot that she'd broken into. She frowned slightly before turning around to look at the others. She looked more than anxious. Drake's memories of Earth bothered him. Something about this was important, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Someone stole something precious from the village!" Drake blinked, wondering what it was. The archer looked to Drake, and then to Vivi and Dagger. Both of them nodded as well, their faces grim.

"We'll go with you, Eiko." The girl's shoulders relaxed, and a small smile crossed her face. Her eyes were still worried, though. She propped her hands on her hips, a small scowl replacing the smile.

"Thanks, but what about Kuja?" Drake turned and looked at the Iifa Tree. Even without the Mist there, the tree seemed to be veiled. Drake knew that it was simply the distance between them and the structure. When he looked back at the others, Zidane was grinning.

"Madain Sari isn't that far. He can wait." Drake smiled a little at the confident sound of Zidane's words. Dagger was heading back to the tent to start to break it down, so the archer trotted to help her. Between the two of them, the shelter was quickly broken down and slid back into Drake's pouch.

Zidane was patient enough to wait for the rest to be ready, keeping an eye on Eiko as the girl paced impatiently. Whatever it was that was stolen, it was really important to her. She was more than ready to leave, and hike as quickly as possible.

Somehow, the thief had called his chocobo to him, and the bird chirped a greeting to the archer, butting him lightly. The man gently patted the bird. While he preferred horses, he didn't have a grudge against the creature. On flat land, he could run alongside it just fine.

Eiko and Vivi were pushed onto the chocobo, and Drake trotted ahead, his bow in his left hand and his quivers on his back. He had a broad grin on his face at the runner's high, remembering almost too late that he shouldn't run off too far. He sighed as he waited for the rest to catch up, already almost to the mountain path that connected the disjointed continent.

The archer seemed to be even more impatient than Eiko once the others arrived at his location, as he was pacing and moving around constantly. Zidane took advantage of Drake's need to move around to keep them moving forwards, moving Eiko onto his back as Dagger got onto the chocobo.

The thief wasn't able to carry the girl for very long, and ended up putting her back on the chocobo with Vivi and Dagger. The bird didn't seem to mind the extra weight, so the thief ran alongside Drake. The archer did his best to set a pace that the rest could keep up with but still ended up pulling ahead of Zidane. He had to force himself and the chocobo to stop to let Zidane catch his breath halfway through the afternoon, at the far end of the trail.

Drake found a spring nearby while Zidane walked around to catch his breath without making himself sick, and filled their canteens. Eiko was chattering away at the thief, on the ground again, and looking excited and happy that they were almost back to her village. Drake was rather surprised at their progress himself, but running was something that he'd always enjoyed.

"How can you still be moving around like that?" Drake blinked at Zidane as he finally sat and rested himself. The archer grinned past his canteen before he took a gulp. He was breathing a bit heavily, yes, but not overly so. Nor did he seem to be moving as stiffly as he had that morning.

"Stamina. There's a pace that I set that I can keep for hours on end. When I was younger, once I'd stopped tripping over everything so often, I ran messages from village to village. I could outrun the monsters, for the most part, and I did have a sling that I used." Drake noticed that the children were looking at him, and smiled sheepishly. "I learned when I was a boy, as part of my duty as goat herder." Zidane coughed a little at that, and Drake looked at him.

"You herded goats?" Drake nodded, and stretched his legs carefully, being especially careful of his thighs and calves. He seemed to know what to do to ease the cramps that he must have started to get.

"Yes. They're ornery, smart, and silly creatures." Dagger giggled at Drake's announcement, and handed him some jerky from the satchel she'd been carrying. The archer bit off a piece and chewed it as he rubbed his ankles and knees.

"Goats are? How odd, I've never heard anyone refer to animals like that." Drake snorted at that, and swallowed his bite of food, getting back to his feet.

"Yes, they are. They're stubborn enough that they don't like to be herded, smart enough to spite folk, and silly enough to get themselves in trouble the moment their herder turns his back." The archer bent into a low stretch to ease his growing cramps. "Can we get going again before I start to cramp up enough that I can't run?" Zidane groaned a little as he nodded, lurching to his feet.

"I'm gonna want to rest for a while tomorrow. I am so not used to running long distances like this." Drake chuckled and tucked the rest of his jerky into his pouch for later. He helped the girls and Vivi to get back on the chocobo so that Zidane could stretch his aches out. Drake felt a bit bad about forcing his blood brother to run when the man was used to walking long distances rather than running them, but if they wanted to get to Madain Sari in time to catch the thief that had stolen something from Eiko, they needed to rush.

They ran for a while longer, but Drake called a halt to camp before they reached Madain Sari. Something was telling him that they needed to rest before they returned. Zidane and Eiko both grumbled about it, but the three riders moved stiffly once they dismounted again. Eiko and Vivi played tag for a moment, stretching themselves out with play. Dagger stretched as she and Drake erected the tent, and Zidane grumbled to himself as he lay on the ground, panting and trying to keep from retching.

"Sorry, Z." The thief blinked at Drake for the nickname he hadn't heard in weeks. "I shouldn't have pushed the group so hard. Here. Get up and walk so you don't puke." The archer offered Zidane a hand to haul him up to his feet again.

"Never thought distance running was something I'd need..." Drake smiled lopsidedly as Zidane started to pace around the camp. Drake had picked a merchant stop, and Eiko paused in her play to renew the anti-monster charms once Drake called her attention to them.

The archer then sat by the tent, setting his unstrung bow and quivers to the side and folding himself in half in a stretch. Vivi and Eiko turned their play into gathering wood for the firepit, and the black mage lit them once the two of them had arranged the kindling and logs to keep the flame from going out.

The five of them fell asleep quickly that night, confident in the anti-monster charms. Drake woke before dawn and bit his lip to keep from groaning as he rolled onto his side and slipped out the tent. He found a stick and prodded the banked fire into dull life, stretching his body carefully. After a moment, he thought of something, and returned to the tent.

Zidane reached for one of his blades when Drake woke him, but relaxed once he realized who it was. The archer gestured for him to follow him out of the tent, and carefully stretched his shoulders and arms. The thief did the same, grimacing with his cramps.

"I thought you'd want to get up and stretch before everyone else gets up. I'll teach you the stretches that I learned to ease your legs more." Zidane blinked and nodded, looking less than awake. Drake chuckled a bit and set to his task, glad that his blood brother was already quite flexible.

Dagger looked surprised when she saw that the two men were the first up. She watched as the two men stretched and limbered up, easing their aches and pains. The sun was peeking up over the horizon, marking how early the two men had apparently decided to rise. Eiko and Vivi weren't up until after the two of them had finally gotten limbered up enough to continue on. Zidane was even in a rather good mood.

The children barely had enough time to get their things together after the well-deserved sleep before they were on the chocobo again, heading towards Madain Sari. Drake kept them at a walk this time, preserving everyone's energy for a fight that he had a niggling feeling was what they would find. Zidane seemed a little surprised at the different pace, but didn't complain.

Even before mid-morning, they had arrived at Madain Sari. Eiko hopped off of the chocobo even before Zidane or Drake could help her off, and dashed ahead of everyone, into the ruins. She shouted a greeting as Drake and Zidane exchanged glances. Zidane turned to help Dagger and Vivi off of the chocobo as Drake ran off to try to catch up with the six-year-old girl.

By the time Drake caught up to Eiko, she was surrounded by frantic moogles, all speaking at her, switching between Common and Moogle seemingly at random. The little girl didn't seem to really care, as she understood what she was being told with ease. She looked from one moogle to the next, her eyes focusing on them intently.

Morrison paused in his speaking to Eiko to nod to Drake, and started to tug the girl towards the far side of the ruins, where her house remained. The archer nodded back, and waited for Zidane and the others to arrive. The thief looked alarmed when he didn't see Eiko, but Drake jerked his thumb down the trail.

"She and the moogles went ahead. I've seen no sign of thieves, so I figured it's safe enough." Zidane nodded a little to Drake's words, though he still had a stern set to his mouth and jaw. "I'll go catch up to her. I stayed only to tell you lot." Zidane nodded, and Drake turned, loping off along the path in that ground-eating gait of his.

It wasn't a long run, for Drake. Within minutes, he was slowing to a walk just outside Eiko's home. Once again, he had found his way around the ruined city eerily well. He pushed that aside as a possible coincidence, and walked into the little girl's home, looking around quietly. Morrison walked into the main room from the kitchen, his paws folded behind him.

"What happened?" The archer kept his voice fairly soft. He didn't know where Eiko was, and didn't want to upset her if she was near enough to hear. The moogle Constellato sighed softly, and turned to look at the window to Drake's left.

"It will be better if Miss Eiko explains for herself. But it seems as though this corner of the world is being pulled into the quarrels of the rest." Drake tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing. His memories were bothering him. Instead of what he did normally, he decided to pay attention to them.

"...There's a...crystal here...right?" The moogle looked sharply at the Chosen, who was rubbing at his forehead. He looked mildly pained, as though he were pushing himself to remember something. He shook his head suddenly, sighed. "Dammit, I used to remember this stuff clearly." Morrison frowned and sighed at Drake, unfolding his paws and fluttering his wings to take off and land on a chair to look Drake in the face.

"You must remember. You must find the balance within yourself between the two halves of you." Somehow, Drake wasn't surprised that the Constellato had already known of his disjointed memories. "More than your mental readiness relies on it, I'm afraid." The archer gave him an odd look.

Before he could ask the faerie to elaborate, Zidane trotted into the room. The dark-haired archer closed his eyes to keep from sighing heavily. Had Zidane not shown up when he did, the Caledonia native would have been able to question the Constellato on what he knew. The archer was fairly sure that the others weren't even aware that the moogle was more than he seemed.

Zidane seemed to be aware that he interrupted something, and looked cluelessly at his blood brother. The archer shook his head a little and scratched at his scalp, looking out the window towards the river. Quina was nowhere to be seen, so the archer had to assume that the Qu was wandering around the ruined city.

The thief shrugged a little to himself and slid through the room, moving to the kitchen. Drake glared a bit at the Constellato as the moogle refused to look at him before following the thief. Vivi and Dagger came into the room just in time to see the glare.

The rest of the moogles were standing by the lower part of the kitchen, or fluttering, in some cases. Drake glanced to the moogles before slipping through the doorway that they were all looking at. Though the mist from the waterfall nearby felt good against his dry, taut skin.

"Eiko?" Drake peeked into the room, resting his hand and most of his weight on the doorframe. Zidane turned to look back at him, but the girl didn't turn from where she was looking at a box on a table set before a window. The soft roar from the waterfall echoed into the room, making it rumble enough that the hairs on the back of Drake's neck stood on end. Something about the room made it feel sacred.

"The precious stone that has been passed down in this village for generations is gone!" Now goosebumps raised on Drake's arms. Again, a stone was stolen? It felt like it was only a few days ago that the stone guarded by the oracles of Cleyra was stolen by General Beatrice. What was it about these stones? The archer felt like he should know, but he just didn't. Though he supposed that part of it was what the Constellato had been talking about, at least.

How was he supposed to 'find the balance between his two halves', though? Did the Constellato mean the part of him that was drawn to Caledonia and the part that was drawn to the Mist Continent? Or had he been referring to his memories?

"My grandparents said...They said that we should take care of it because it's a symbol of the summoner's heritage." The little girl sounded like she was about to cry. Zidane scratched the back of his head, his tail waving a little.

"Well...How about crying for a change? It'll help." Drake closed his eyes for a moment, hiding a sigh. He twisted to look at Dagger as he heard her move to stand behind him. They couldn't all fit into the room, and the little girl had decided to bond with Zidane more than anyone else, so it made sense that he was in the room with her.

The purple-haired girl whirled around with a frown, and propped her hands on her hips as she scowled at Zidane. Drake blinked at that, wondering if this was the first time that the girl had shown any sort of anger pointed at the thief. The only reaction that the archer could see was a slight flick to his tail.

"I'm not gonna cry! I'm a grown-up now, and crying won't help one bit!" Drake sighed a little, thinking that Eiko had lived alone a bit too long. On one hand, she acted just like a typical child, but on the other, he could easily see that she'd had to force herself to grow up fast.

"Alright. How about we start looking for clues?" Zidane shook his head a little, dismissing what he'd said before. The insulted look on Eiko's face disappeared quickly, and she nodded. Drake turned his head to the side a little as Dagger moved closer.

"I'll help too." Zidane and Eiko both looked to Dagger, and Drake plastered a slight smile on his face. His eyes scanned the room, seeing things that must have been saved from the rubble ten years past lining the shelves. The books were stored well away from the windows, safe from the water.

Zidane looked where his blood brother was looking as Eiko turned around to look at the empty box on the table again. The thief knelt to look over some old statuettes on a low shelf, making sure to not touch them. After all, they looked more than a little fragile. Dagger walked into the room, taking advantage of the sudden extra space.

Eiko started to hiccup as she asked if it was her fault that things had been stolen, and Drake sighed, running his fingers over his ear cuff. He still wasn't convinced that he was good with kids, though a few women had mentioned that he was, back at the clan. This wasn't a good start to the new year, in Drake's view.

"It's not your fault, Eiko." Dagger turned to look at Drake, but the little girl didn't turn at all. "The actions of bad folk have nothing to do with what their victims do." Drake had a feeling that the bounty hunter from the tunnels was behind this, but he couldn't say why, aside from his memories. If that was the case, the woman would have stolen it right out from under their noses, regardless of who was there.

Zidane nodded to what Drake said, getting up from where he had knelt. He moved to stand next to Eiko, not touching her in case she was still touchy from what he'd said earlier. "It just happened that way. It isn't your fault." The girl just hiccupped. Drake had a feeling that the reason she'd turned her back on them was so that they wouldn't see her cry. Zidane knelt down, a gentle look on his face. "Besides, we're the ones who made you open the seal." Drake and Dagger nodded, supporting the thief in his attempts to get the little girl to cheer up.

"The real villain is the thief who stole it." Zidane glanced to Drake, an odd look on his face for a moment. He nodded, though, and looked back to Eiko. Something had told the archer that that was the right thing to say, but he didn't know that it had been the exact wording that was on Zidane's tongue. How could he? His memories of Earth were still very fuzzy.

"So let's just look for some clues and get that stone back, okay?" The girl hiccupped again and rubbed her face on the sleeves of the dress that Drake's mother had given her. Why the girl had tucked the ends of the dress into the tattered overall that she'd been wearing when he and his blood brothers found her, he didn't know.

"O-okay..." She sounded a little watery still, rubbing at her face to try to wipe away the signs of her tears before she turned around. When she finally turned around, her eyes looked a little puffy, but there were no tear tracks on her cheeks.

"I wasn't going to cry, you know, after all, I'm a grown-up!" Drake bit his lip to keep from smiling. The last thing they needed was the little girl to think that he was patronizing her. She just didn't know that they could still tell that she'd been crying. Zidane was facing away from her, and smiled a bit at Drake, seeing the amusement in his eyes.

"We know, Eiko. But if you feel like crying, just cry." Eiko scoffed and shook her head, trotting to the door, past Dagger. Drake had to wonder where the girl had learned that it was a sign of weakness to cry. He certainly had never learned that on the mountains. Emotions were a good thing there, a sign that the person was alive.

"I'm gonna go pray to my grandparents! I'll be right back." Drake tilted his head to the side as Eiko scampered off, and pushed off the doorframe to watch her as she scampered up the stairs. The archer blinked as he heard Zidane tell Dagger it was alright for her to cry, too. Drake rolled his eyes at his blood brother and trotted up the stairs to keep an eye on Eiko.

A sudden scream by the girl made the archer run faster, glad that his boots were fairly new. His old ones would have left him sprawled on the ground if he tried to put on a burst of speed like this. He heard a ruckus from the others running to find the girl as well.

The archer got a glimpse of a metal blade before it disappeared. He cursed, gritting his teeth as he stared at the wall that the woman had climbed up. How could she move that fast with such a huge axe?! The archer stretched his legs out and dashed to the Eidolon Wall, where the bounty hunter had taken the girl.

Morrison stopped the archer before he went dashing in, and the Constellato gave the man a stern look that kept him there until Zidane and the others arrived. The moogles were fluttering around him as well, keeping him from doing anything rash. Much to his annoyance, though, none of them would shut up.

Drake looked to Zidane as the thief led the others there, his eyes concerned. The archer jerked his thumb at the moogle that was standing by the doorway, looking stern. The look of irritation told his blood brother why he hadn't kept chasing after the bounty hunter.

Morrison allowed Zidane to inch closer and peek into the Eidolon Wall as Drake looked up at the outside of the temple, looking to see if he could climb up. As Zidane kept Morrison's attention, the archer shifted his bow on his back and started his climb, moving quickly. The moogle that Drake had seen pacing on top of the wall had gone to get items to help the six-year-old's rescuers.

Drake paused as he saw that the moogle hadn't been the only one on the wall. His body froze half-way up the wall, his eyes set on a man with deep red dreadlocks crouched and slouching as he stared down at the area within the murals. After a moment, the man turned his head, an eye gleaming at him from under the dreadlocks, deep in the pale blue skinned face.

"Best finish pulling yourself up if you don't want to fall." The archer mechanically did that, not taking his eyes off of him. The man stretched his hands, the metal claws on his wrists and hands scraping against the stone beneath him.

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment before the man – he must have been a fighter much like Sabin, fighting with his hands and feet – looked back down as Zidane led the other two into the enclosure. Drake risked a look down himself, though he quickly looked back at the man – Amarant Coral, his brain suddenly supplied. Wanted in Treno for something or other.

A brief feeling of excitement washed over him. He was starting to remember his memories from Earth again. If he could keep his memories from Caledonia as well, he would be quite happy. But he _needed_ to remember his memories of Earth. After all, they made him who he was just as much as his Caledonian memories.

Down below, Eiko had been put to sleep by Lani with some sleeping weed already, and Zidane was asking about that. Drake tensed as he noticed that Amarant was staring rather intently at his blood brother. The archer didn't dare reach for his bow. The monk was too close to him for him to be able to risk any sign of aggression. He did want to protect his blood brother, though.

Drake hadn't been paying any attention to what was going down below, keeping an eye on Amarant, so when the monk moved and jumped down, he was more than a little startled. He almost fell off of the wall, forgetting that he was still in a rather precarious position.

Amarant had nearly hit Lani, making her drop Eiko. Luckily, Zidane had leapt to catch the sleeping six-year-old. The archer moved to a more stable position on the wall, moving so that he had a better view of what was going on. He took his bow off of his back as he did so, feeling much better for being at a distance from the monk. Though from that jump, he had a feeling that the man could close distances much faster than the archer.

"I dunno who you are, but thanks!" Drake settled down on the wall, facing sideways to the battleground with his bow in his left hand. He uncapped the quiver on his shoulder and slid a wooden-tipped arrow out of it to nock it to his bow. He wasn't sure if he was needed, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Not to mention he was out of Lani's line of sight, and that woman had it out for him, for some reason.

"Where's the old hag?" Drake smiled as he heard Eiko's voice, but he kept his eyes on Amarant and Lani. He didn't know much about Amarant yet, and he couldn't remember much past his name, and he knew that Lani was antagonistic towards the group.

"Oh, that's it! Who are you calling a hag!?" Drake mentally cheered the six-year-old girl for getting Lani riled up. A calm enemy was a dangerous enemy. Unfortunately, Amarant looked like the sort to take things in stride. If they all had to fight him, they were in trouble.

"You!" Drake rolled his shoulders without removing his arrow from his bow. He could see that Amarant was still staring at Zidane, but the thief was smiling down at Eiko with an amused look on his face. If he was aware of the intense stare he was receiving, he didn't show it. He shook his head slightly to get his mind back on track, and smirked at Lani, a distinctly different look on his face.

"So, the tables turn! Now, hand over the jewel you stole!" Drake hummed softly to himself. He'd remembered right. Eiko's ancestral stone was the same as the pendant that Lani had tried to steal from Dagger in the tunnels. Now his question was where did he learn these things? He didn't completely remember that part, and that was what was going to drive him nuts.

"What are you tryin' to do, Red!?" Drake shook his head to clear his thoughts out. Now was not the time. Lani was glaring at Amarant now, her axe in her hand and causing her to lean to the side with its weight. "I thought you're supposed to be the number one bandit!" Drake settled into his place to watch and wait, something telling him that he wouldn't need to jump in.

Zidane and the others looked to Amarant, who was now staring at Lani from under his dreadlocks. Dagger in particular looked astonished at what the man had been called. Drake had an idea about what he was, though, and the monk hadn't been surprised at the reaction the archer had given him. Of course, it was at least partially that the archer was a ranged fighter and hadn't realized that there was a melee combatant there.

"I've seen him before...!" Drake glanced to Dagger for her exclamation, lifting an eyebrow. Zidane also turned his head to look at Dagger, glancing from Amarant. "He's the one with wanted posters all over Treno!" Drake tilted his head at that, and then briefly wondered why none of his friends had looked for him. Were they that used to him disappearing off on his own?

"I'm not here to help. I just want it to be fair." Amarant sounded gruff, as opposed to amused when Drake had climbed up on top of the wall. Drake suddenly realized that he must have been either tracking Lani and seen them in the tunnels, or had been tracking them, and only just bumped back into Lani.

"What are you talking about?" Did that mean that Amarant had already known about Drake's tendency to wander off by himself? Maybe that was why the monk had been amused. It was something to ask the redhead eventually.

"What are you talking about?" Lani's eyes were narrowed at the bandit, and she hefted her axe to rest the blunt side on her shoulder before flicking it in front of her with a flourish that must have hurt her wrist.

"Leave the jewel and get out of here. Unless you want that archer up there to turn you into a pincushion." Drake lifted an eyebrow at the fact that Amarant had mentioned him, but he did indeed gesture up towards the archer. Vivi turned to look up at him and smiled, but Lani had to take a step to her right to be able to see the man crouching on top of the wall. He smiled thinly down at the bounty hunter, putting on a hard mask to scare her. After all, the last time she'd seen him, she had him at a disadvantage, and he already had an arrow on his bowstring.

Lani blanched at the sight of Drake well out of her range but ready to attack her, but tried to act tough, glaring at Amarant as she slung her axe on her back again. She obviously didn't want to give the wrong impression and end up with an arrow stuck in her.

"What!? We're partners on this job!" She sounded more than a little incensed that Amarant was forcing her to give up the advantages that she'd fought for. Drake didn't blame her. With that oversized axe of hers, she had to have some pretty specific situations to be able to really excel. Amarant snorted.

"I don't work with hostage-taking scumbags. Now, get lost." Amarant flexed his hands slightly threateningly, and Lani took a step back, glaring. When the big man slid into a fighting stance, she took a couple more steps back. "Or...Would you rather fight me?" The rather petite woman scoffed a bit and backed up to the wall where it was shortest.

"Mark my words! I'll collect the bounty on _you_ someday!" With that parting shot, the woman clambered up a broken pillar where it had fallen over the wall. Zidane took advantage of the bounty hunter's disappearance to turn and look up at Drake, flashing a smile at him. His attention flashed from his blood brother when the bandit jumped over the pedestal that had sand heaped over it, landing in front of them.

"Now, fight me!" Drake blinked as the bandit drew Zidane's attention back to him, and hesitated for a moment before he relaxed his bow, no longer ready to attack. Something told him that Zidane could take care of this guy on his own.

"Just a second here. What's going on?" The thief sounded confused and wary now. Drake didn't blame him. First the bandit scared off the bounty hunter after making sure that she returned what she stole, and now he wanted to fight them?

"I told you. I'm not here to help. I just want to level the playing field." There was a moment, and Drake shifted so that he sat on the wall, sliding his arrow back into the quiver. This was Zidane's fight now, not his.

"Fair enough. Let's do it." The monkey-tailed thief sounded a bit resigned to the fight, much to Dagger's worry. He gave the princess a small smile for her concern, and waved the children aside. Drake thought for a moment, then got up and jumped to the nearest column, being careful to not jump too far, before looping his bow over his shoulders and clambering down. "I was just looking for more ways to impress you, Dagger." Drake rolled his eyes at his blood brother as his feet touched the ground, and he took his bow off of his shoulders again.

Before the archer turned to look at the group, Zidane had charged at the bandit, making him jump out of the way. Drake sighed and crossed his arms, doing his best to track the two fighters. Amarant was as agile as Zidane was, if not more so. While that might have normally been a problem, Zidane was adept at avoiding any injury.

It was true, however, that Amarant was moving around much more than the thief. For a moment, Drake wondered if that was part of Zidane's strategy, letting the bandit wear himself out. Already he could see that the monk fighter was breathing heavily. Zidane saved his energy to swipe at Amarant only when he neared the thief. Even Vivi was shaking his head a little at the way the man was telegraphing his attacks.

Drake wondered briefly what the bandit had against his blood brother. Judging by the man's intensity, there was something there, but the archer didn't have a clue, aside from that. Zidane was hitting more decisive blows than the monk, though he made sure that none of them were fatal. Drake blinked after he realized that. Had his outlook on battle rubbed off on his brother? He'd talked about the hunter's creed to him before...

Finally, Amarant fell to one knee, panting hard and bleeding from cuts all over. Drake could hear him growl from where he was, and uncrossed his arms. After all, he himself was an example of why a person who's beat should never have a back turned on them. Anastasia had pushed him until he all but snapped on her.

"I...lost?" The archer could barely hear the bandit over the cheers of the other three. He was the only one of the bystanders not whooping and cheering for Zidane. No, he was keeping his eyes on the bandit, in case he didn't back down peacefully. "Go on. Finish me!" Drake tilted his head to the side at the demand, his eyebrows lifting. He hadn't been expecting that.

Zidane walked over to the monk where he was kneeling on the ground, his blades still in his hands. He looked down at his fallen opponent, and for a moment, Drake thought he was going to do as he was asked. After all, the bandit, for all he was an outlaw, had a sense of honor that refused to let him live after a defeat.

"Can you stand?" Drake smiled slightly and relaxed as he heard his blood brother's words. The redhead stared up at the blonde, looking more than a little bemused. Zidane stuck his hand out towards him, palm up. "Give back what was stolen." The bandit hesitated, and then slapped the fair-sized jewel into the thief's hand. Zidane then turned to smile at Eiko. "Here, Eiko." The six-year-old bounced towards the thief with a bright smile on her face.

"Now, finish me!" Drake all but planted his face in his hand at the bandit's insistence that Zidane kill him. The thief seemed to share his exasperation, propping one hand on his hip as he looked down at the pale man.

"You wanna die that bad? I just spared your life." The monk was quiet for a moment, peering up at Zidane. Drake shifted to lean against one of the columns, being careful of his bow. The others were quiet now, too, waiting to see what Zidane was going to do.

"...So you want to banish me, then?" A smile quirked the archer's lips. Amarant didn't sound too sure of himself. He was pretty sure he knew what his blood brother was up to, though, and he approved, a bit. Their group did need another melee fighter. Zidane couldn't cover four distance fighters on his own. Zidane merely shrugged.

"You can go if ya want. I won't follow you." The monk sneered and lurched as he pushed himself up onto his feet again. Drake shifted as though he wanted to go and support the man. After all, he hadn't shown any aggression towards the archer.

"Aha! Trying to trick me, eh?" Zidane tilted his head to the side. Drake didn't have to see his brother's face to know that he'd lifted an eyebrow in a questioning manner. The monk had obviously never met someone as genuinely helpful as Zidane. Of course, Zidane was usually the odd one out in the troupe, as the rest usually had strings attached to their assistance. To outsiders, at least. As Blank had put it, family helped each other, even if it's found family.

"Trick you?" Zidane hadn't moved from his stance, hand still on his hip and head tilted to the side. Of course, the monk was wavering on his feet, so it wasn't like he was in any danger. Briefly, Drake wondered if the outlaw had any potions to heal himself. He certainly needed some.

"I tried to kill you! Why are you letting me go?" Amarant sounded frustrated. Drake didn't blame him. He was used to people taking the breath from those that had wronged him, and Zidane wasn't like that. He hadn't been raised like that. Sure, Baku would beat whoever had messed up, but he only did so to make it sink in that it wasn't acceptable, and the beatings varied according to how badly the boy had messed up. Drake had actually found that it made the troupe learn fast. Not just at avoiding making Baku angry, but at everything. Of course, it got to the point where Baku didn't even have to lift a ham-sized fist. A verbal threat was enough to get them moving.

"The fight's over, and we're both still alive. Good enough, right?" Zidane scratched the back of his head, glancing over his shoulder at Dagger. Drake blinked at that, and then smirked. Of course. He'd said that he was trying to find new ways to show off to Dagger. This was part of it, even though it was perfectly in the norm for the thief. "We got back what was stolen from us, after all."

Drake turned his head to look at Eiko. She was spinning in place, giggling softly to herself as she held her jewel up to the light. Drake thought it looked like quartz, but he would have had to take a closer look to be sure. After having it stolen, he wasn't sure Eiko was willing to let the archer look it over as carefully as he would.

"Listen to you. I lost to some spineless thief." Drake's eyes snapped at Amarant. Zidane was most definitely not spineless. He had a lot more spine than most people. He was just more compassionate than most thieves. He didn't kill needlessly, and he helped folk. And...he wasn't insulted.

"The sly eagle doesn't kill at a whim." Zidane was simply shrugging in the face of the growl Amarant had uttered. Drake had a feeling that the monk's head was spinning from blood loss at the moment, with the way he was wavering.

Drake followed the redhead with his eyes as he jumped up onto the nearest column, then onto the wall, and then over it. He'd been fumbling with his belt pouch, which eased the archer's concerns that he didn't have anything to heal himself. At least the man would live.

Zidane stretched and yawned a little as he turned around, and smiled at Eiko. She'd given them all quite the scare, what with getting kidnapped from right in front of her home and all. The six-year-old blinked as she suddenly realized she was getting stared at by her four companions, and blushed a little.

"Keep that in a safe place." Zidane pointed at the jewel that she was holding, and she nodded emphatically. She hugged it to her chest, twisting back and forth with a smile on her face. Drake couldn't help but smile as well at the fact that everything had turned out well.

"I will! Thanks, Zidane!" The girl darted for the exit, and then paused, turning to look at Vivi. "Well!? You're not going to leave me alone after what just happened, are you!?" Drake snickered, and stopped when he saw the girl's baleful stare leveled at him as well. Both he and Vivi made small sounds of confusion, and she propped her hands on her hips. "I'm going!"

Vivi adjusted his hat before trotting after the girl, and Drake glanced to Zidane and Dagger before shrugging and loping along after the children. Might as well give his blood brother some time alone with the girl he was courting. He had a feeling that Zidane would do the same if his girl was there.

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**End notes:** I'm gonna be giving Amarant a bit more of a personality than he had in the game. Granted, the game_ used_ to have more content with Amarant in it that was cut out, but we don't exactly have that. So, I get free reign with how he acts, so long as it fits in with what we know of him from the game.

_**Read, enjoy, and review!**_


	21. Harmony

**Authoress' Notes:** Part three! Just have one more part after this, and then you all have to wait until I start book three! ~evil cackle~

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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**Chapter 21: Harmony**

Drake sighed contentedly as he sat on the edge of the cliff overseeing the ocean. The sun was setting, the warm light bouncing off of the ocean. Eiko had delivered a decent meal on short notice, though Quina hadn't shown up again, and Zidane and Dagger went off to talk some more.

"Drake?" The archer twisted to look behind him. Eiko was there, looking at him with wide eyes. He tilted his head to the side, and patted the ground next to him. The six-year-old set down her flute as she did so, her legs sticking straight out in front of her. She hadn't sat too close to him, not that the archer complained. It was a bit too warm to even stand too close together. Maybe he would bathe in the waterfall later.

The little girl was wearing her jewel as an earring, having wrapped wire around it to attach it to her unpierced ear like Drake's ear cuff. Drake thought it would make a better pendant, but didn't say anything about it. It was her decision, after all.

"Zidane said...that you play the flute." The archer's attention was jerked from the ocean again, and he set his gray eyes on the little girl next to him. He nodded his head, and she held up her flute, her eyes glittering hopefully. "Could you teach me some? Grandpa didn't always have the breath to teach, and I taught myself the rest of what I use." Drake chuckled lightly and dug in his pouch, pulling out his old flute.

"I don't see why not. How about that song I heard you singing earlier?" The girl blushed as Drake mentioned the song that Drake knew Dagger also knew. She'd been singing it to herself as she cooked supper.

"I don't know how to play it." Drake smiled a bit, and looked down at his flute, settling his fingers over the holes. He thought for a moment before lifting the instrument to his lips and slowly, carefully, finding the notes of the song.

Eiko joined in on the music by the second refrain, her notes more hesitant and halting than his, but playing the correct ones. Once he was sure that she had the basic melody, he started to play with the music, changing it so that it sounded a little bit more like his village's music.

Eiko seemed to be gaining confidence as she played, realizing eventually that it wasn't the amount of skill that made Drake as good at the flute as he was, but the willingness to make mistakes. She started to make mistakes as well, but they were small ones that she shrugged off.

Drake could feel the sunlight on his eyelids, but he honestly was just enjoying the chance to bond with the six-year-old girl that was sitting next to him. Their song changed as they played, morphing from the melody that it had started out as and changing into something entirely different. But it still sounded familiar to Drake.

After a while, they had to stop to catch their breath. Drake chuckled a little as he looked to Eiko, who was huffing and puffing for air more than he was. He hesitantly reached out and patted her on the head, being careful of the yellow bow that his mother had given her and her horn. She blushed and looked up to him, holding her flute with both hands.

"You're pretty good for not having gotten much training. I'm guessing that's because you listen to yourself. Not many people do that." Eiko ducked her head and fidgeted where she was sitting. "I can teach you more songs if you want, but I think that making a song up is just as fun." Eiko giggled a little and scrambled to her feet so that her head was on the same level as Drake's.

"I'm just glad to have someone to play with!" Drake chuckled before a shout got their attention, the warm smile slipping from his face as he realized that it had been Zidane shouting. Drake scrambled to his feet as Eiko started to run towards where the shout had come from, down a narrow staircase that Drake had barely realized was there.

Drake paused as he saw the harbor, and frowned when he saw Zidane rowing a boat back in, with Dagger collapsed in the back of it. He looked more than a little worried. The archer ran to the edge of the dock, scooping the end of the rope that Zidane threw out of the water and pulling on it lightly. He didn't even pay attention to what the little port looked like, just making sure that the boat was moored and Dagger pulled out of the boat.

"What happened?" Zidane panted a little as he got himself and Dagger onto the dock, looking quite worried. "Zidane!?" He shook his head as Drake knelt with the princess resting against his knee, his right arm around her shoulders.

"I-I don't know. She collapsed." Drake held his hand in front of Dagger's mouth and then checked her pulse. Both were steady, and she didn't feel warmer than normal. He relaxed, which caused Zidane to relax as well, seeing that his blood brother didn't seem too worried by the princess's sudden fainting fit.

"Just unconscious. We might as well let her rest until she wakes up enough to tell us what happened." Zidane nodded, and Drake shifted out of the way so that the thief could pick her up in his arms. The archer brushed himself off and looked around, taking in the appearance of the harbor. It looked...shattered, as though something powerful hit it and the stone gave way. The breaks weren't very weathered, either, which told him that either this place was protected from storms and the like, or the damage was recent. He couldn't tell which of the two was right.

The archer decided to bathe once they'd trooped back up to Eiko's house, and sighed with relief as the water pounded at his muscles, erasing the cramps that had been building up. A couple of the moogles were standing guard so that neither of the girls could accidentally walk up on him while he was unclothed.

More than anything else, Drake felt the last dregs of the Mist that had been clinging to his skin fade. The liquid Mist that he had touched made his skin crawl, yes, but Mist in any form gave him the creeps, and it always felt like it was sticking to him.

Morrison was there once he'd waded out of the stream. The moogle offered him a towel, which the human took and ruffled his hair with before draping over one shoulder. The Constellato lifted an eyebrow at him, and the archer smirked back before walking over to where he'd left his clean clothes. His dirty ones he'd scrubbed as best he could before getting out of the water.

"What did you mean, two halves of me?" Drake didn't even look at the moogle as he got dressed, briefly wiping his skin before sliding into his breeches and shirt. He was starting to remember more of Earth, but that was at least partially because he was pushing himself to. "Does it have anything to do with what Soulcage called me? 'Whole-soul'?" Now he turned to look at the Constellato, who was still standing where the archer had left him. He had folded his paws behind him. It seemed to be his favorite stance.

"Yes, it does." Drake sighed as he finally got an answer, and sat on one of the boulders. They were a fair distance from Eiko's house, and the sun had finally dipped beneath the horizon. Already the archer could feel the chill that the night would bring. "As Maria said, you put things together very fast." The Chosen smirked a little at the compliment.

"I've done so as far back as I can remember. Clearly, at least." Drake sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm going to assume that the balance you said meant between my memories. I just hope that nothing happens that makes me hesitate because my mind tells me two different things at once." The Constellato chuckled slightly. He unclasped his paws and fluttered up onto a boulder next to the archer.

"Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Remember, though. Simply because we Constellato know a great deal, we don't know everything." Drake chuckled dryly. He set his left heel on the edge of the boulder and looped one long, lanky arm around his knee.

"I know. Even Constellato can make mistakes, leave themselves open to attack. I've seen it, both in Gizamaluke's Grotto and Cleyra." He heaved a sigh, finally, closing his eyes and letting his head rest on his forearm. "And I get the feeling that you lot don't know what I know...just that I know it." He opened his eyes and smiled wearily at the startled moogle. "Otherwise the Maiden would have been more prepared for the jewel being stolen from her followers, and Gizamaluke wouldn't have been caught by surprise." Now Morrison stared intently at the archer.

"...Maria was right...You do know what is to come." Drake nodded and ruffled his hair, sending droplets of water everywhere. "You haven't told your companions?" The archer shook his head negatively.

"How would I explain it to them? 'Hey, I've got a pretty good idea of what's coming, but if we don't follow it exactly, it could all go to pot'? No, it's better that I just watch and keep my mouth shut. ...Even if some things are different." Morrison stared intently at Drake, as though by staring hard enough, the knowledge that the Constellato craved could be transferred. "Why do I know these things, though? I don't even know that."

"I...cannot tell you. It is best that you remember on your own." Now the archer growled under his breath. Having holes in what he knew drove him nuts. What had already happened was set firmly in his mind, so long as he hadn't had a concussion at the time, but his knowledge of what was going to happen felt fuzzy, as though he was remembering, but it hadn't happened yet.

"Is it because...because half of me is from Earth...?" His aggravation didn't bleed through his words. He wasn't even sure why he asked, but he did. He didn't get an answer, either, seeing as Morrison up and disappeared while he wasn't looking. "Tch. Of course. I never get a clear answer on the things that are bothering me the most until I figure it out for myself."

Grumbling, the archer gathered up his things and carried them back with him to Eiko's house. He draped his wet clothes on a flat rock that he'd seen Eiko use for drying clothing before, and walked into the house, scraping his hand over his chin. Zidane turned to look at him, and smiled, relief in his eyes. Drake lifted an eyebrow at him before he spotted the princess, understanding immediately.

"There you are. We were wondering if you had found another part of the village to sleep in." Drake snorted a little at that, and ran his fingers along the scar on his left arm. He didn't seem to notice the slightly nervous gesture, though.

"I was cleaning off the dust from our trip to the Iifa Tree and back. I'm going to assume that we're heading back out that way first thing in the morning?" Zidane nodded to Drake, who sighed slightly. He was tired. "Right. I'd better crash now, then. You should too, Zidane." The thief blinked a little at the mischievous grin on his blood brother's face. "After all, you, me, and Vivi are the ones that didn't have unplanned naps today."

The monkey-tailed man snorted with laughter at that, understanding why his brother was snickering. It was true. Dagger had passed out on the boat, and Eiko had been put to sleep with some sleeping weed, so it stood to reason that they were both still wide awake. Vivi was a child, so he'd needed to go to sleep before the rest of them.

"Right, I'll turn in, too. Good night, Dagger, Eiko. Don't stay up too long." The girls nodded as Zidane followed Drake to the rooms they'd slept in when they were last there. The archer covered a yawn as he walked into his, smiling a little as he saw that the hammock he'd slept in was still up.

A fuzzy paw poking the archer in the face was his wake-up call in the morning. He groaned and swatted at the source of it, prying one eye open to see Mog hovering next to him. He sighed and pushed himself up, nearly falling out of his hammock, and rubbed at his face.

"Tell Eiko and the others I'll be up soon as I've shaved." The little moogle chirped understanding and fluttered out of the room. The archer groaned again as he set his feet on the floor, and stretched carefully. His shoulders protested the climb he'd taken the day before a little, as he hadn't stretched those particular muscles. "Mnnnnrg..."

The bit of mirror that the archer kept with him so that he could shave was dug out of his pouch and set in a window so that he could see his own reflection. He then set to sharpening the knife that he kept only for shaving, yawning on occasion.

Everyone was waiting for him by the time he got down to the exit of the ruined city, but he had significantly less facial hair. Zidane smirked teasingly at him, and Drake rolled his eyes a bit at his blood brother. His bow was shifted on his back, sitting unstrung in one of his quivers.

"About time you came down. Eiko said that Mog woke you up?" Drake nodded, stretching a little. The sound of rubble shifting made them all turn and look. Drake lifted an eyebrow as he saw the bandit arrive, leaning on a downed pillar. He looked a little pale still, but his injuries had been sealed up.

"What now? You want some more, eh?" Zidane sounded a little weary, but hid it well. A glance to the others told Drake that the only ones not on edge were himself and Zidane. Then again, perhaps it was because the two of them could see that the bandit wasn't in a fighting stance.

"The victor lives, the defeated die. You know the rules." Amarant's voice was a low rumble. The archer could hear a faint amount of confusion in his voice. He must have been doing a lot of thinking over the night, and the Caledonia native was pretty sure that he hadn't come up with any answers. "Your actions yesterday were incomprehensible to me. Tell me! Why didn't you kill me!?"

Drake yawned and scratched the back of his head before pulling his bow out of the quiver and digging in his pouch for a bowstring. Zidane crossed his arms in front of him, tilting his head to the side. Eiko glanced at Drake as he casually looked for a bowstring, and relaxed. If the men weren't worried, maybe she shouldn't be either.

"Well, that's a tough question...Are you really that unhappy that I let you live?" Amarant growled a little, his fists tensing. Drake finally pulled out his bowstring and started to string his bow. Once again, he wondered at his ability to even wield this bow, with how stiff it was. When he glanced back to Amarant, he was being stared at warily.

"I'd rather die as a warrior than live as a beggar." The bandit sounded a little calmer now, though he still looked down at them. Drake ran his thumb over his bowstring, feeling he waxed sinews vibrate against his skin.

"Then come with us." Drake lifted an eyebrow at Zidane, hooking his bow over his back. Dagger and Vivi both squawked a bit at that, turning to look at the thief, but he wasn't looking at them. His eyes were on the outlaw still.

"...What are you after?" Drake stretched his arms with a wide yawn. He was still tired, and bound to feel that way for a few more hours yet. Zidane chuckled a little and linked his fingers behind his neck, his tail waving as he shifted his weight onto the heel of his left foot.

"Follow us and maybe you'll understand. Besides, you're pretty good in a fight. I need some help keeping that one from getting hurt whenever he wanders off." Drake scoffed as Zidane jerked a thumb at him, faking indignation. He knew that his brother was right, after all. "Plus we're hunting a man down. We could use someone like you."

Amarant scoffed as well, crossing his bulky arms. Drake realized after a moment that he was about as buff as Sabin, if not more so. Then again, he was probably a fair bit older than Sabin, who was Drake's age. Zidane was also watching the bandit carefully.

"Very well. I'll find out what makes you so strong." Drake scratched at one of his eyebrows, trying to stifle a yawn again. Dagger turned her attention back to the monk, frowning a little. Drake was pretty sure that she was trying to decide if the thief had made a good decision.

"What's your name?" Drake lost the battle with his yawn, his eyes tearing up a little from the force of the gesture. He rubbed at his eyes with a slight sigh, wishing that he would wake up properly before they had to set out on the road.

"Call me what you will." Drake smirked faintly at that. Knowing that Zidane would easily take him up on the offer made the archer remember the myriad of nicknames that he'd gone through before he'd settled on the name he used now. 'Stork' being among them because of how gangly and tall he was, along with the fact that he hadn't really had too many muscles.

"Hm...Lani called you 'Red', right?" Amarant growled a little at that, obviously seeing his mistake. Though the grin on the thief's face stated that as loud as a shout, so it wasn't like it was hard to miss. The archer's amusement wasn't hidden, either.

"Some call me the Flaming Amarant," the redhead growled, finally giving them a proper name. Drake scratched at his ear cuff, trying to hide his smile. After all, he was going to be working with the man, so he didn't want to anger him any.

"We'll call you Amarant, then. The more the merrier." Drake stretched again, and blinked down at Eiko as she attached herself to his leg. He stumbled a little, and bent down to try to pry the girl off of him. He couldn't afford a pulled muscle now. "Drake takes point, I'll be right after him, then Dagger, Vivi, Eiko, and Amarant."

Amarant crossed his arms at that, and Drake lifted an eyebrow at his blood brother. Normally the archer was in the middle of the group, where he could use his bow to attack either in front or behind. Then again, he supposed he was needed as a guide. Everyone nodded, showing that they agreed with their position in the group, so the archer nodded as well, taking his bow off of his back and padding down the road.

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Drake sighed, watching the moons go down over the horizon. It was his watch now, a few hours' walk from the base of the Iifa Tree, and the sun would be rising in an hour or so. Amarant had been quiet throughout the hike, even with them pushing as hard as they had on the way back to Madain Sari. The archer hadn't thought he'd be able to keep up, but then he'd seen that the bandit had needed to hold himself back so that he didn't overtake Zidane.

Maybe the archer had finally met someone that he could race with. Zidane's trust of the man hadn't extended to making sure that no monsters ambushed them at night, so the man had gotten a full night's sleep.

Or so Drake thought, until the dimming moonlight made the man's skin seem like it was glowing as he walked over to stand next to the archer. For a moment, Drake didn't know what to do, but he decided that so long as Amarant was being peaceful enough, he'd keep quiet and see what was what.

"You a native boy?" Drake twitched at Amarant's question. "You run like you're used to this terrain." Drake sighed a little and set his bow to the side, closing his eyes to stretch.

"Yeah. I was raised in the mountains. My da taught me how to tell what's underfoot ahead of you, so you don't end up breaking an ankle. One o' his brothers taught me how to run the way I do, though." Drake stretched his legs out in front of him, propping his ankles on a rock in front of the one he was sitting on.

"You know how to fight without that bow?" Drake snorted softly, a small smile on his face. Before he discovered that he was good with the bow, he'd preferred to fight barehanded. The archer took his boots off, sighing happily once his bare feet were pressed to the cool ground.

"I learned alongside the current Chosen of Capricorn. He's my blood brother." Amarant was silent for a moment. Most that fought as the Chosen did knew the sign of their particular 'job class'. The Chosen of Sagittarius didn't have all of them memorized, but he knew which ones his blood brothers belonged to.

"...That'd be a yes, then." Drake grinned, his teeth flashing in the moonlight. The archer had some traits from both the Gemini Chosen and the Capricorn Chosen. While he didn't steal, he was still almost hyper-aware of what other people around him did.

"It is. Am I wrong in assuming that you would enjoy a spar?" The archer chuckled to himself as the bandit twitched. He had learned the basics of figuring people out while in Caledonia, but he learned the majority of the task in Lindblum. Though perhaps his memories of Earth helped him a great deal on that front as well.

"Tch. Too smart for your own good." Amarant's growl didn't sound whole-hearted. He too was taking off his shoes, placing his pale feet onto the dirt tamped by beasts and travelers. Drake gave his weapons a pointed look as he stretched, and the bandit took his claws off.

The moons had set by the time the two of them were finally all stretched out. Drake had a bit of an advantage, seeing as he could still see his sparring partner a great deal better than he could see himself. On the other hand, his opponent normally had his dreadlocks in his face, so it was entirely likely that he didn't really need to see.

Amarant was quite surprised by how well this gangly archer could fight without his bow in his hands. More than once, he hadn't seen a kick that the man had aimed at the bandit's head, leaving him with his head feeling not quite attached. He was good at dodging as well, but that was to be expected of an archer. The thin man concentrated more on kicks than anything else, but was able to keep his balance fairly well despite that.

Finally, the bandit managed to get the archer on his back by knocking his feet out from under him as he went to kick the pale-skinned man. Amarant made the mistake of relaxing his guard, and was soon on the ground himself, looking up at the archer that was somehow back on his feet with a broad grin that was flashing in the early morning sunlight.

"C'mon don't tell me you didn't know that move." The thin man stood back a bit as the monk got to his feet, and blinked at the sound that came to the side. "Morning, Zidane." The thief was standing there watching the two of them with an odd look on his face.

"Didn't think I'd see you two sparring, to be honest." The archer snorted and rested his hands on his hips, keeping his balance on the balls of his feet. "Though I guess I should have expected it, seeing as I saw Sabin giving you pointers for most of a day." Drake chortled softly.

"If I didn't heed Sagittarius, I'd hail to Capricorn. Blades and I don't agree." Zidane snorted at that. It was a miracle that the man had been able to swing a wooden sword around competently enough for the play. While learning it, the man had dropped it on his foot, hit himself with it in the head, and banged himself in the knees far too many time to count.

"Understatement of the century. Don't get too rough. I don't want to have to wake one of the girls in a hurry to heal someone." Amarant shrugged a little as Drake nodded. The archer had a feeling that the reason they hadn't been told off was because Zidane wanted the monk to feel like he was becoming part of the group, not just a tag-along.

"Yeah, yeah." The archer waved a hand before sliding back into what served as his ready stance. He and the bandit sparred until they realized that the rest were up, and they were well and loose. Drake smiled sheepishly for the look that he was getting from Dagger, and crouched next to the fire to drink the tea that Eiko had decided to make. After the way he'd been acting the day before, the archer was glad for it. He needed to make sure that he stayed awake.

A mild healing spell was cast over both the archer and the monk, healing any bruises that they'd given each other. Amarant didn't seem to be upset at the healing, though he did refuse any tea he was offered. He had his own rations that he gnawed at as he waited for the rest to be done with the boiled hardtack that Eiko had made. It was largely tasteless, but was good enough to give them energy.

Drake blinked as he noticed Dagger playing with something in her lap, and tilted his head to the side. The princess blinked at Drake and hid it in the pouch that she had on her belt, blushing. Drake shrugged a little to himself, and scooped up the last of his food, shaking the bits that clung to his fingers off before briefly wiping them on his trousers and standing.

"Everyone ready?" Drake nodded to Zidane, and waited until everyone was away from the fire before kicking dirt off of it. The archer made sure that the fire was out completely before stretching and starting to lope along ahead of the group.

The archer climbed one of the columns once he reached the area where they'd taken the roots to the base of the Iifa Tree, letting one leg trail behind him as he held his arms out until he got his balance. He heard the others catching up to him, and glanced over his shoulder at them.

"There's still a little Mist, but at least there's no more coming out. That must mean Kuja isn't here yet." Drake hummed a little to himself as he looked over the roots. Zidane was right, there was significantly less Mist. The archer focused on his thoughts, frowning a little. His memories were fuzzy, but he had the feeling that things were going as they were supposed to.

"What happened to the Mist?" Amarant was quite obviously out of the loop, so Drake sighed and pushed himself off of the column again. He brushes his trousers off, his palms brushing the scorched parts of his armor. He wished he could find some new armor, but there was no time.

"We beat the beast that breathes it. So much for the Mist Continent!" The archer shook his head a little at Eiko, and ruffled his hair, grumbling under his breath about how the nice haircut that he'd gotten in Lindblum had been ruined by him being set on fire.

"No more Mist...?" Drake turned to look at Amarant, leaning slightly on the column he'd been perched on. The man was slightly stiff, likely wondering what the place looked like now that there was supposedly no more Mist. The problem was that everyone seemed to take it for granted.

"Nope. Though, granted, I think things will be more peaceful. You know the stories about how the Mist plays with the mind? It's more real than you think. The beast told us that the Mist was designed to cause folk to be more warlike." Amarant turned to look at Drake as the archer spoke.

"Zidane, there's a silver dragon!" Dagger's exclamation drew everyone's attention upwards, where the princess was pointing. Drake stiffened and pushed off of the column, his eyes picking out the glint of the beast against the sky. He concentrated on that speck, and frowned a little. All he could see was silver, which meant that Anastasia wasn't with the man. Somehow, he felt disappointed by that.

"It's him! He flew from the ruins of Burmecia riding a silver dragon!" Drake nodded in agreement with Zidane, his face tense. "Drake, do you see-" The archer shook his head, his hand gripping his bow hard. Amarant turned his head to look back at the two of them, wondering what was going unsaid.

"He's alone." Zidane sighed a little at that, and rubbed at his face with one hand. "It's Kuja alright, though, and that's the same dragon he was riding out of there." The archer shook his head a little. "I may have been mostly unconscious at the time, but I remember that dragon." The archer's hand moved to his chest to rub it in a self-conscious manner, remembering the pain he'd felt from that attack.

The lot of them watched as the dragon grew near, and swooped into the tree to land there, just out of sight. Drake exchanged looks with Zidane, looking rather concerned. The archer couldn't really guide them here, so there was no point to him acting as point. Zidane started along the roots first, his tail flicking here and there to help him keep his balance. Dagger started after him, followed by Vivi and Drake before Eiko noticed them leaving and trotted to catch up. Amarant took the rear again, seeing as he was the only other melee fighter.

Once again they had to fight their way along the roots, the white mages dissolving zombies into dust left and right. Drake barely even had to reach for his arrows the entire time, though Vivi and Zidane and even Amarant had gotten a few hits in before the healing spells were sent off.

They took a break at an area where several roots met and the archer dug some ethers out of his pouch to hand them to the mages. The girls looked like they needed it, not entirely used to casting spells so often, even though they'd done so just a few days earlier, or perhaps that was why they looked so exhausted.

Drake himself felt tired. He felt as though they should have gotten everything done with in one trip, not needing to leave and come back in a rush. His shoulders ached a little from how he'd been holding himself to make sure that he didn't slip and fall. Yes, he'd been healed after his spar with Amarant that morning, but that had been before these aches had even had a chance to come into being.

Trail rations were passed around for an early lunch, but certain members of the group couldn't seem to sit still. Amarant paced like a beast in a cage, never wandering too far from the rest of them. From what the archer could see of his face, he looked rather concerned, probably about the Mist. The archer couldn't blame him.

Drake groaned a little as Zidane announced that their break was over, and hauled himself to his feet, rolling his shoulders to crack the joints. Dagger cast a weak cure spell over him, and got a faint smile in return. Out of them all, he was showing his concern the clearest.

After about ten minutes, Zidane stopped them and looked up at the trunk ahead of them. Somehow, Eiko had slipped between Dagger and Zidane, leaving Drake and Amarant to bring up the rear. Both of them were lagging behind a bit. Drake was starting to ache again, and thinking about putting away his bow to fight barehanded. Amarant was just behind him.

"We'll pass by the trunk if we go any farther." Zidane's words drifted to them as they started to catch up, and the archer turned his head to look up at the trunk of the Iifa Tree. It really was towering over them, casting a shadow that protected them from the midday sun. "Kuja's up there somewhere." Drake hummed a little, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Say, Zidane...How are we gonna get up there?" Drake and Zidane blinked at the same time at Eiko's question. None of them had thought up the answer to that, apparently. Zidane's tail flicked, and he scratched the back of his head.

"Can't we climb there?" Drake sighed loudly, and Zidane turned to look at him. The archer looked at him and then at Vivi, whom they knew had trouble walking on level ground sometimes. They'd been surprised when the boy had been able to hold onto the gargants on the way to Caledonia from the Mist Continent.

"Not me!" The archer smirked a little as the six-year-old girl chirped her disagreement with Zidane's idea. The thief sighed, scowling his irritation. Vivi shook his head as well, and Drake nodded towards the princess, who didn't have the muscles for such a strenuous climb. She was shaking her head as well, looking rather concerned.

"I don't think I can, either." Amarant growled behind Drake, and the archer uncrossed his arms, twisting to look at the monk. He had his arms crossed, being careful of the claws he was wearing. Drake was entirely convinced that he was the one in the group that would be most likely to be able to haul people up the trunk.

"We came all this way...Now what?" Drake turned to look at Zidane again, humming a little to himself. He twitched a little as Amarant actually spoke instead of being quiet like he'd been all day long. The archer had just assumed he didn't have anything to say, but looking back on it, it was entirely possible he'd been keeping his mouth shut so that he could watch them interact.

"What's the problem. You and this one here should just go by yourselves!" Drake sighed and rubbed at his face briefly, realizing that the bandit had included him in his statement. Zidane was frowning at Amarant, propping his hands on his hips.

"We gotta go face Kuja together." Drake scowled and twisted to glare at Amarant as he caught what the bandit said in return to Zidane's statement. He stumbled as the bandit pushed past him, and almost fell off the root, grabbing hold of a couple of tendrils before he fell all the way off.

"Hey!" Drake wasn't the only one to nearly get knocked off the root by the man. Vivi, Dagger, and Eiko were all wavering on the root after the bandit pushed past them. The only one that had nearly fallen off so much was Drake.

"Hey, watch it!" Zidane's hands were dangerously close to his daggers as he glared at Amarant now that the bandit was standing in front of him. The archer moved to help Vivi stand again, and used his bow to tip Eiko back away from the curved edge of the root. Dagger was already rebalancing herself.

Amarant said something that Eiko's screech covered up. Drake had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from snickering. The little girl didn't seem to understand that the man in front of her was feared by people far older than her, and for some very good reasons.

"Well, I prefer 'my way or the highway'," Zidane snarled at Amarant, looking considerably more irked than he'd been moments ago. The redhead crossed his arms, looking less than convinced. Drake couldn't see his face, only the back of his head.

"Whatever. Like you actually have a plan." Drake nibbled on his lower lip as he looked at the climb. He could make it easily on his own with his bow on the back, but not carrying someone in addition to it. When he looked back to Zidane, he shook his head a little to his blood brother. He couldn't carry the kids or Dagger.

"Oh yeah, smarty-pants!? Don't forget you're the one that lost to Zidane!" Drake reached out with his bow and rapped Eiko gently on the head. The girl turned around to scowl at Drake, and he lifted his other hand to press his forefinger to his lips. The last thing they needed was for the monk to decide that the little girl was too much of a hassle.

"Shut up, brat." Drake sighed at Amarant's snarl, and propped his hand on his hip, staring at the back of the man's head. He didn't turn around anyhow. Zidane had a plotting look on his face. Drake sighed through his nose, hoping that they got through the topic as quickly as possible. While they stood there arguing, who knew what Kuja was up to.

"A plan, huh...?" Zidane grinned widely, and Drake lifted an eyebrow at him. When that look crossed his face, no one ever knew what to expect, even Baku. "That's right, Amarant! You owe me one, remember? It's payback time!" Drake sighed through his nose again. That was most definitely not what he had been expecting. The only reaction the bandit had was to click his tongue.

"Shoot." Zidane grinned, pleased that the bandit wasn't kicking up a fuss over this. Drake wiped his forehead a little, wondering why there was no breeze to cool them down. It wasn't like they were surrounded by hills or trees that blocked the wind, after all.

"There's some gargant grass around here, so a gargant can't be far. I want you to catch one for me." Zidane was treated to a blank stare from more than one person around Amarant's back. Drake was wondering if his blood brother had hit his head at some point, the idea he'd come up with was so ridiculous. "Then we can all get on and ride it to the top."

"Why should I do all that when I could just take the kids up myself?" Drake ran his fingers through his hair. Zidane hadn't given all the possibilities enough thought. The thief blinked at Amarant's retort, but didn't look insulted.

Seeing that the blond didn't have a reaction, the bandit pushed past Dagger, scooped up the kids in his arms, and jumped to a root a fair ways away. Drake sighed, but watched to make sure that the two children were alright.

"He sure has spirit." Drake shook his head a little at that, and started to look for ways to get himself up to where the bandit had just set the children down. "Alright, Dagger. I'll just carry you piggyback." Drake flashed a smile to Zidane and unstrung his bow, pushing it and the bowstring into his pouch before securing his quivers.

The archer led Zidane up the vines, feeling his muscles start to burn partway through, but not stopping. He grimaced as Amarant grabbed his arm and hauled him the rest of the way up onto the trunk, and sat with his back against a root of a smaller tree that was growing on the dirt and debris that had accumulated in this area.

Eiko fussed at Drake once she realized that he was hurting, and played a little tune on her flute to cast her magic on him. The archer barely noticed, watching as the bandit pulled Zidane and Dagger up off of the vines and made sure they weren't about to topple over the edge. He might have been gruff, but the bandit was starting to care about what happened to them in his own way.

"Thanks, Amarant!" Drake smirked as the monk twitched slightly. The man likely hadn't been expecting to be thanked. Amarant looked around, taking in their surroundings. Likely, he was trying to figure out if he needed to carry the kids again.

"Now we're even. Show me what you guys can do." Drake smirked a little and pulled his bow out of his pouch and strung it again. His smirk grew into a grin as he felt Amarant staring at him. He loved his enchanted pouch so much.

"There's Kuja!" Drake's attention snapped to Dagger, and then to where she was pointing. He'd been just about to bend his bow to slide the string on the top tip when the princess had announced she'd spotted the man that had caused so much chaos on the Mist Continent.

Sure enough, there was the silver-haired man, standing next to his dragon. There was no pretty brunette there, much to Drake's relief, so he was going to be able to concentrate on the fight properly. The man didn't seem to have noticed them, but Drake knew better than to assume that he didn't know they were there.

"Get ready. Dagger, Eiko, make sure that everyone's healed up. Vivi, do you need an ether?" Drake grunted slightly as he slipped the yet-unsecured end of the bowstring over the tip of his bow and settled it into the notch that kept it in place. Dagger cast another healing spell over the archer, washing away the last of his aches. Eiko was doing the same to Amarant, and the man's muscles relaxed a little.

Vivi wiped his mouth with a grimace before handing the empty bottle back to Zidane to save for when they found someone to take the bottles from them. Drake poked around his quivers, trying to decide if he wanted to use his metal-tipped arrows or wooden-tipped arrows. Amarant flexed his arms and made sure that his claws were secured to his hands properly.

"Everyone set?" Zidane's question was low and a little dangerous. Drake glanced at his blood brother, and saw that he was putting another empty bottle away, having opted to drink a potion to heal his slightly sore muscles than to have Dagger or Eiko heal him. The girls were drinking ethers as well, returning their magic to full power.

"I'm ready." Amarant sounded eager, and Drake glanced to the man before nodding a little as well. He had his quiver of wood-tipped arrows on his back, and slid the rest into his pouch. Vivi nodded his ratty hat, his eyes determined but scared as he held tight onto his staff. Drake noticed that that object looked like it needed replacing, covered in soot and as scorched as the boy's hat.

"Kuja...Maker of black mages..." Vivi sounded a little scared still, but the boy had more courage in his small body than many men several times his size. Eiko hopped in place, eagerness on her face. She wasn't as informed of what they were walking into as the others were. To her, they were just on an adventure.

"Any enemy of Zidane is an enemy of mine!" Drake sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, finding the inner peace that he'd needed to find again after leaving Burmecia. He felt like his head was buzzing, he was so aware of everything.

"Crow-mother, keep us under your wing." The archer's short prayer was a bare whisper, but Amarant was looking at him out of the corner of his eye when he opened his eyes again. The croak of a raven overhead made the archer look up and smile. A large black bird tilted its head to look down at them, croaked again, and flew towards Kuja, passing over him and the dragon unnoticed. The archer relaxed, a confident smile on his face finally.

"Alright, let's go!" Zidane hopped off the platform they were on and started to trot along the root that connected their ledge with the outcropping the silver-haired menace stood on. Drake slipped into place between Vivi and Eiko, in the perfect place to quickly grab hold of either if they were to fall, and be able to use his bow and not accidentally hit any of his friends.

The root they were on didn't connect directly to the one that Kuja was standing on, so they simply moved into sight of the man. Drake was glad that this root was at least much wider than the ones they had been walking on further down. They weren't in as much danger of falling off this one as they were before climbing.

"You are Kuja, correct?" The man's back was to them, and the air was dead still. The princess's voice carried across the thirty foot gap between them, commanding and full of a sureness that wasn't in her eyes. "My name is..." Now she hesitated. Drake glanced to Amarant, and blinked as he saw the man was a few feet away from the rest of them, where the root was against what passed as a trunk, leaning against it. "...Princess Garnet Til Alexandros. I wish to ask you something."

For a moment, Kuja didn't turn. His dragon had certainly noticed their presence, though, and preened. Drake's eyes narrowed as he heard the beast's growl through the stagnant air. The skin between his shoulder blades prickled, the part that would be his hackles if he were a wolf. His instincts were warning him that there was trouble.

"Was it really you who persuaded my mother to start the war-"

"The war that threw the entire Mist continent into chaos?" The silver-haired man cut off the princess, his voice carrying clearly over to the group. Drake blinked, wondering why he had thought the man's voice was rough. He'd heard it before, in Burmecia. The man's voice was smooth and light, as though he were speaking about the weather, not about chaos and destruction.

"And you made everyone...The black mages into instruments of war!?" Drake glanced down at Vivi as the boy bowed his head to hide the fury in his eyes. He couldn't keep it out of his voice. Now Kuja turned to look at them, a smile on his pale face.

"Oh, dear...The princess has such a bloodthirsty little puppet." Drake's grip on his bow increased. His eyes spat fury as the silvery man slid his eyes over the group, not failing to notice Amarant where he was leaning just barely out of sight, acting like he wasn't a part of their group. "I don't have the power to do such a thing. I just gave them a little recipe." Kuja shrugged and held his arms up like an actor, shaking his head a little.

Drake wasn't fooled. This man had more than enough power to do things that a battalion of black mages couldn't do. He had more magic in one of his hairs than Drake had in his entire body. He could wipe them all out right there, but instead he'd decided to be an actor.

"Begin with a broth of Mist, add fermented souls, and boil..." Drake bared his teeth in a silent snarl as Kuja continued. "Then, pour genuine black magic into a mixing bowl and heat to-"

"Enough." Kuja let his arms drop at Drake's snarl. Vivi was shaking next to the archer, but the Caledonian man didn't dare reach for him. He might need to grab an arrow in seconds, and comforting the boy would just slow that action. The man sneered at the archer.

"I'm not done telling how to make soulless toys out of the dregs of souls." Drake sneered a little at the man, his right hand near the strap that held his quiver on him. It was just a quick jerk of the hand to the fletching of his arrows. The others snarled a little at the man, shifting slowly into fighting positions.

"Dregs of souls? You mean Mist!?" Drake moved his right hand to his quiver, slipping the fletching of one of his arrows between his fingers. It would take very little to convince him to pull that arrow out and nock it to his bow.

"First, you don't want to listen, now you start asking questions?" Kuja sneered at them, shaking his head as he spread his arms out dramatically. "Oh, brother...But you're not ready yet!" Drake's fingers twitched slightly. His mind whispered something that he didn't quite catch, as busy as he was with being ready to attack at any given moment.

"Why, you- Don't you feel anything!? Taking the lives of so many..." Drake simply continued to stare balefully at the man. The silver-haired man waved a hand, turning his head to the side dismissively.

"Spare me the lecture. Lives come and go all the time. What's the big deal?" Drake started to pull the arrow in his fingers out of the quiver, pausing only when Kuja spoke again. "Speaking of warmongers, why...what about that mother of yours, Princess?"

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**End Notes:** I don't remember if I've talked about this particular mythological character, but the 'Crow-mother' that Drake prays to is The Morrigan. I may have explained a bit about her back when one of the characters told a story with her in it. She's a goddess that gives people the right to rule, as well as being a goddess of the battlefield. One of the old legends that I dug up on her familiars, the crows, states that if a crow flies over an army towards the battlefield, good luck will befall that army. That's why Drake became confident after seeing the crow.

**_Read, enjoy, and review!_**


	22. Tidal Wave

**Authoress' Notes:** Last part of this book! It's a bit - okay, a LOT shorter than the rest of the chapters, but that's sorta the case of most of my stories. The first part and the last part are shorter than the rest.

I hope everyone enjoyed reading the first half (yes, half. I'm only halfway done.) of this epic. Things are going to get even more confusing in the next quarter, but I'm gonna do my best to explain things so that everyone understands it! Plus, more characters getting cameos!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Final Fantasy franchise.

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**Chapter 22: Tidal wave**

Drake finally felt the wind press against his back as he stared at Kuja, his mind whirling around itself. On one hand, he wanted nothing more than to turn the man into a pincushion, but on the other, something was telling him to stop, that now was not the time.

"She said she won't feel alive until she has everything! It breaks my heart to see such greed!" The man was still taunting the princess, feigning grief. His eyes remained cold, staring down at them over his flat-ish nose. "The war was my fault? No, no! Your mother wanted it! All I did was give her a little push!" The archer finally opened his mouth, glaring at the man.

"After ensuring that she was already mad with grief." Kuja paused at that, looking Drake in the eyes. The archer shivered slightly inside of his own skin at the cold that washed over him. Fortunately for him, the feeling didn't last long.

"Liar!" Kuja's attention was snapped away from the archer. "My mother was sweet and kind. You changed her!" Drake allowed his body to relax for a moment, relieved that the ice that had filled his blood was gone. Kuja sneered before something on the horizon caught his attention. A genuine, if unpleasant, smile crossed his face.

"Mwahaha...So the curtain rises! Perfect, my canary. Let me show you the truth about your mother!" Drake and everyone else turned their attention to what had caught Kuja's notice. "First Act: The End of the Ugly Desire. It's showtime!" Drake gave Kuja an unpleasant glare before turning around like the rest of them to see what the man was looking at.

Far out in the ocean were red sails, ships sailing under the Alexandrian flag. Drake had to focus his sight to pinpoint which ship the queen was on. When he finally spotted her, she was flanked by a pair of vacant-eyed black mages. She was on her flagship, towards the rear of the armada.

The archer could feel the magic gathering from where he was standing. Even Amarant had turned his attention to the nearing fleet. The Caledonian felt his hackles rising as he realized that Kuja was laughing.

"Your mother isn't satisfied with just one continent! Her ugliness and stupidity are truly impressive." Drake straightened a little, and glanced down the line to Dagger, who was kneeling, her eyes wide and despairing. Zidane looked disbelieving, almost like he had when Lindblum had been attacked. "Ahh...Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

Something in Kuja's words unlocked a bit of Drake's memories. He flinched a little and let his arrow slide back into his quiver, closing one of his eyes in a grimace. Images flashed in his mind's eye, green, blue, red, and black. He spread his legs a little more so that his sudden lack of balance didn't topple him over and off the root.

"What're you talking about!?" Drake blinked towards Zidane, his head clearing enough to see that his blood brother had turned around. Briefly, Drake wondered why he hadn't had a reaction to Zidane's blood after the ceremony.

"You're just the opening number. Time for the real show." Drake shook his head and turned around, pulling an arrow from his quiver and nocking it in a smooth movement. He then drew the bowstring back, aiming the arrow at Kuja. His dragon hissed.

"We won't let you get away!" Drake nodded to Zidane's shout, his eyes calm and sure. Vivi wobbled a little as he turned around, his eyes just as determined. None of them wanted to see the destruction that they knew was coming.

"The Mist may be created no more, but it still lurks in caves and forests, right?" Drake didn't waver. His arms burned from holding the bowstring and arrow back, but he didn't let the weapon budge. No one could say that he wasn't strong.

"What of it?" Drake's voice now sounded very much like a growl, his eyes hard as the winters of Caledonian mountains. Kuja sneered at him, cackling as he raised his arms, magic weaving around him.

"I can make monsters with magic! Come forth, spawn of the Mist!" Drake's attention snapped to a creature that seemed to form out of nothing, clinging to the trunk. He readjusted his aim to it and loosed, his arrow finding a crack in the beast's exoskeleton. It roared in pain, and the archer shook out his drawing arm briefly before reaching for another arrow. Vivi was already torching it, and Dagger was casting a powerful healing spell on the other, the one that Drake hadn't spotted.

Both creatures faded back into Mist with a screech. Drake turned to look at the man that had sicced the beasts on them, only to find that he had escaped. The archer bit back a curse, and switched which hand held his bow so that he could rub his right shoulder.

"So, two of your enemies are dukin' it out? Why not just leave 'em, and finish off the winner." Drake glanced to Amarant, and rotated his left wrist in a circle until it popped. "My money's on Kuja." The archer sighed and turned around again to look at the armada. Kuja was flying towards it, no doubt with a well thought out plan ready to spring into action.

"It's not that simple." The brunette archer's words were soft as he turned around completely and sat on the root, stretching his legs out in front of him. His face was grim as he watched what he knew was going to be a slaughter. "It's never that simple."

The hum of distant magic became overwhelming. Drake frowned a little, wondering if using a magic the individual wasn't meant for simply cost more mana than they could manage. It was an interesting thought, but didn't make too much sense in his own situation.

Kuja's silver dragon descended into range of the fleet's ships, flying in a straight path to taunt the cannoneers that were shooting at him. The archer could see that they were well out of range of the cannons. They, at least, were safe.

"Amarant's right. Let's split before we get dragged in." Drake looked over at Zidane, and then blinked at Dagger as she stood up. She looked pale, but determined.

"No...I can't...I can't let anything happen to my mother." Drake frowned a little at that, and hauled himself up onto his feet. A hand on his elbow kept him from pitching forwards, but when the archer glanced to Amaant, he was back to leaning on the 'wall'.

"Dagger?" Drake rotated his shoulder until it popped, sighing to himself as he prepared for the run down the root he knew was coming. Exactly why his memories of Earth had decided to return all at once, he didn't know, but he wasn't about to argue about it.

"Zidane, I...I have to save her!" Zidane frowned at Dagger, looking a bit confused. He didn't move from his spot at the head of the line, even as the distant booming from the cannonfire increased.

"Uhh...Dagger? She extracted eidolons from you and started a war." The archer snorted a little, realizing that his blood brother didn't know the connection that caused a child to forgive their parents for even the most heinous things.

"I still don't want her to die!" Zidane shook his head, flinging his arms out as his face twisted into confusion even more.

"But she didn't care one bit whether you lived or died!" Drake ruffled his own hair, tapping his foot a little. It hadn't seemed like a lot of talking when he was playing the game, but he wanted them all to be moving, and soon. "You don't have to call her mother anymore! She isn't even your birth mother!"

"She's my only mother!" Drake's eyebrows shot up at the incensed tone in Dagger's voice. If she weren't a princess, Drake would have sworn she was snarling at the blond. "I don't care if you don't understand!" The black-haired young woman whirled around and tilted to the side to look at Eiko, who was standing behind Drake. "Eiko, you said that there was an eidolon imprisoned near here, right?"

Drake blinked at the look of fire in the princess's eyes. She had set herself a goal, and was bound and determined to meet that goal. It was admirable, but...Drake knew that something was going to go wrong. Eiko squeaked an affirmative behind Drake, sounding uncertain. The brunette didn't blame her, seeing as even he had never seen Dagger with that look on her face.

"Please! Tell me where!" The archer blinked as he was suddenly used as a climbing tree, and tilted to the side as Eiko poked her head over his shoulder and pointed.

"It's a long way down. You see the place with lots of roots? That's it." Even Drake turned to look at where Eiko was pointing. It was easy enough to see, and the root they were standing on led right to it, conveniently. Drake could see the faint form of some statue that he had to assume was where the eidolon was chained.

"There. I see it." Dagger took a moment to look towards the battle, and then pushed past Zidane roughly, running down the root as fast as she could manage. Drake was impressed with her speed. Drake stepped past Vivi to grab Zidane's tail as he started to wobble too close to falling.

"Dagger!" A hiss got Drake's attention, but as soon as he pinpointed its source, Eiko's spell had already taken it out. "Thanks, Eiko." The girl chirped a 'you're welcome' and slipped off of Drake's back as the archer pulled his blood brother back onto the root.

"Hehe…This is turning into quite a show." Drake turned to look at Amarant with a frown on his face as the bandit pushed off the wall and stepped towards them a little. Eiko turned to look at the man, and stomped up to him to glare at him with her hands on her hips.

"Anyone can get emotional at a time like this! Give her a break!" Drake had to bite back a snort at how amusing the scene was. Eiko really was fearless. He found it more than a little endearing.

"Zidane, let's go. She's in danger all by herself." The monkey-tailed thief turned to look at Drake, and nodded, his mouth a thin line. Drake thought of something, and crouched, turning to look at Vivi. "Climb on. It'll be faster if you two are carried. Amarant, you get Eiko."

Zidane blinked at Drake taking charge for a moment, then grinned and turned to trot down the root. Drake waited until Vivi had settled on his back, then moved his bow to support the boy's rear and starting to trot carefully. A squeak from Eiko told the archer that Amarant had picked her up.

It turned out that Drake's idea was a good one, as the two children were able to concentrate on casting spells to take out the beasts that Kuja had created to chase them. They managed to get down the long root in about half an hour, not moving as fast as they could. Zidane wasn't too sure of his footing, and the other two were carrying children on their backs.

They spotted Dagger as she reached the statue that Drake had spotted, her hands clasped in front of her as she prayed. Drake paused as he saw lines of light crawl across the carved stone to erupt from its spine in what looked like wings or fins that pulsed with white light. The archer set down Vivi after a moment, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck as he made sure that the boy could run on his own.

Zidane sped up as he saw Dagger fall to her knees, and Eiko pushed past the archer as well, running to take a closer look at the statue. Vivi ran after her, and Drake trotted after them at a decent pace. Eiko reached Dagger first, somehow, with the others trailing behind.

"Dagger! What's wrong? Can't you free it?" Drake slowed, staring at the statue. He walked around the side of it and hesitantly rested his fingers against the stone. He felt the vibration of the eidolon's presence behind his eyes, as well as the sense of intelligence that the archer had come to realize marked a Constellato.

"No, I have it. I sense it's a great eidolon. But...but..." Dagger's voice broke as she tried to keep from sobbing. Drake pulled his hand away, and the buzzing feeling left. Eiko pressed her hand to the tail of the statue, which was conveniently in her reach.

"I don't believe it! This is the legendary sea serpent Leviathan!" Drake looked at the statue, wondering what the Constellato had done to be sealed away like an errant child, or how he had managed to do his duties while so confined. The name, though, was one that everyone recognized, no matter where they were from, so it was little surprise that even Vivi recognized the name. "An eidolon who wipes out its enemies with a huge tidal wave! I'm so sorry, Dagger!"

The princess scrubbed at her face and stood, her face grim and paler than ever. Drake moved to her side and clasped her shoulder briefly before looking towards the ocean. They were dangerously closer to the battle ground.

"No, it's not your fault. But my mother's still in danger!" Drake pointed at the armada, his own face grim. Everyone turned to look at what he was drawing their attention to. Kuja had been weaving about amongst the boats, causing their cannonfire to fall on each other. He'd also been summoning monsters for them to really waste their ammunition on.

The feeling of built-up mana felt like screams in Drake's magic reserves. He could only imagine how hard it was for Vivi and the girls to ignore the feeling. All of a sudden, though, a circle made of magic and burning with flames that caused the sea itself to sizzle bloomed above the queen's flagship. The circle rippled before a bright figure shot up out of the center of it, causing the circle to collapse underneath it.

Drake took half a step back at the summoning, lifting one hand to block out the sudden light that peeled off of the dragon's form. The beast plunged back into the ocean to extinguish the rest of the flames, then peeled away towards the shore. Drake swore softly, and bent to grab a root as the eidolon roared over their heads. The rest did the same, trying to make themselves smaller so that the dragon wouldn't attack them.

The archer had to struggle to catch his breath as the eidolon wheeled past them, moving into position to attack Kuja where he and his own dragon landed. The man and dragon were well away from them, and Bahamut's back was to the travelers. They were close enough to feel the backlash of the attacks, but not close enough to be killed by them.

And there were attacks. Drake grabbed Vivi and pulled him behind the statue as the shockwave of mana hit them, powerful enough to cause the air to ripple, and for heat to wash over them. Once again, the archer found that his breath had abandoned him. A glance to the others showed him that Amarant was crouched behind cover on his own, and Zidane had pulled the girls to a similarly protected spot.

The pressure faded, and Drake leaned out of his shelter to see Kuja racing away from the fire on his dragon's back. Vivi pulled out of the shelter the archer had hastily dragged him into to gape at the fier. The others were emerging as well, but the archer could barely move, he was trembling so much.

"I've heard the stories, but I never thought summoning could be so powerful." Drake moved to sit properly, closing his eyes and trying to calm his heart. Dagger had the ability to summon, but she hadn't ever used one around him. He was finding now that that was a good thing.

"Wow...Now we can win! And Mother won't have to die!" Drake shook his head to try to clear it, and looking up at the sky. "Eiko, don't you think...what's wrong?" The girl was looking around, confusion on her face.

"Mog...She's terrified!" Everyone made sounds of confusion, and Drake pulled himself to his feet using the statue. The buzzing feeling he had gotten seemed to sooth him slightly now. Perhaps the Constellato could feel that he was terrified.

"Don't you know? That's the last eidolon, Bahamut, the Dragon King! He'll win for sure!" Drake turned his attention back to the eidolon, wondering why he had heard some doubt in Dagger's voice. He certainly knew why he felt the dread he did. He could swear he heard Kuja's laughter, even though he was way too far away to hear.

The archer's eyes were drawn to the dark clouds that were coming out of nowhere, and he felt his entire body chill. He knew what lurked in that cloud. He feared it more than he thought he would. It was an illogical terror that he only now realized had been creeping up on him. The source of that terror was nowhere in either set of his memories.

And yet it was there, as the eye-like device emerged from the clouds. Nothing happened for a breath, and then energy washed over all of them. The archer groaned with pain as he fell to the ground, his hand grabbing at his chest as his heartbeat became irregular, thumping in his chest painfully. The sound that washed over them hurt as well, but it didn't seem to be focused on them.

The strange attack ended as abruptly as it began, and Drake panted, not sure that the pain had ended. He pushed himself off of the ground with a grunt, and was helped to his feet by Zidane, who had noticed his pain. None of the rest seemed to have had the same reaction as him. Not that any of them had the time to ponder that reaction.

Dagger's scream of despair brought everyone's attention to where Bahamut was. Drake whispered an oath under his breath as he saw the ocean ripple from the Dragon King's attack, taking out the queen's flagship. He lifted one shaking hand and marked his forehead with a curve for the crescent moon, watching as the eidolon started to take out first one ship, then another, and another.

Once the entire armada was alight, the eidolon was surrounded by blue fire, and pumped his wings, pulling himself into the air swiftly. He faded into a blue spiral over Kuja, who was sitting on the back of his silver dragon, looking over the destruction he had wrought.

Zidane moved from Drake's side, wrapping an arm around Dagger, who was sobbing brokenly. Drake closed his eyes for a moment before looking around. He couldn't sense much in the way of creatures, and the terror he'd felt was fading.

Amarant saw that the archer was having a hard time staying on his feet without wobbling, and took the man's bow, unstringing it carefully before handing unstrung bow and bowstring back to him. The brunette looked rather miffed at that, but tucked both into his pouch. He looked far too pale, even considering what had just happened. Eiko was sniffling with fear, and Vivi was comforting her.

Dagger cried for quite a while before calming down, and by that time, Drake had his balance back. He was standing atop the root, looking around. Something caught his attention, finally, and he shaded his eyes, squinting to get a better look.

"I see a ship!" Everyone's attention was on him suddenly, and he pointed, not even looking at the rest of them. "It's on the sand, and it looks like it's still in one piece." Dagger scrambled up to where Drake was standing, trying to find the ship that the archer had spotted. Once she had, she started to run down the roots that led to the edge, where she could reach the beach the ship was near.

"Dagger!" Drake gave Zidane a look, and then glanced to the children before loping along after the princess. He smiled slightly as he heard his blood brother bite back what would have been a curse. The thief wanted to chase after the princess, but the archer was leaving the duty of keeping the children safe to him.

Drake slowed to a trot as he saw that the queen was on the beach. There were no other figures, so presumably, she had dragged herself up past the surf. Her rich clothing was burnt to a crisp, and her once-young face was contorted in pain, blistering and peeling from her burns.

Dagger sobbed again as she fell to her knees next to her mother, tears falling from her eyes in a stream. Drake stood at a respectful distance, glancing over his shoulder as he heard the others arrive. Their faces paled a little as they saw who it was that had been on the ship, and they too stayed at a distance to allow the princess some privacy with her dying mother.

Finally, the queen seemed to come back to consciousness. She shifted slightly, her face contorting with pain. Dagger tried in vain to heal her, whimpering slightly. Drake bit the tip of his tongue to keep himself from moving to the princess's side to help her.

"I...can hear...my daughter's voice..." Queen Brahne's voice was a croak, and her breathing was a rattle in her chest. Drake felt pained even listening to her. He noticed with a start that he was already considering if there was enough wood around to make a pyre for the enormous woman.

"Yes, Mother! I'm here!" Dagger's voice cracked as she moved closer to her mother's head. The woman pulled her strength into moving her arm and reached towards Dagger slowly, painfully. The princess took hold of the large woman's hand, ignoring the way the woman's skin oozed and bled over her already-red gloves. "I'm right here..." The young woman sniffled slightly and blinked tears away, shaking her head a bit to dislodge the droplets from her face.

"I...I am empty now...Free..." Drake turned and looked around, taking note of where the rest were. Amarant had climbed onto the boat and was looking around. Drake hoped that the man had some experience with ships, because he had absolutely none, and he was sure that Zidane and the others were just as clueless. "Free...of that...terrible...greed..."

The archer blinked and turned back to look at the queen. Had she been so steeped in the Mist's influence that she had been overtaken by it? Drake hadn't thought that was a possibility, but with what she said, it seemed it was a real one.

"Mother..." Dagger was doing her best not to break down and sob, her hands gentle on her mother's. Drake shifted where he was standing, wanting to comfort the princess, but getting the feeling that it would be out of line for him.

"I haven't...felt this way...since I saw that play...with you...and your father." Drake looked down. Dagger had lost both of her parents in remarkably short order. Drake still had both of his. The ones on Gaia, at least. His Earth parents were out of his reach...maybe forever. He couldn't help but feel a pang of homesickness for Earth. "I led...Alexandria...down...the path...of ruin..."

The woman's breathing was becoming even more difficult. Drake swore that she was literally about to stop, to use the black mages' word for death. Each gasp seemed to be harder and harder for her to drag into her body.

"The people...will be...happier...with you...on the throne..." Brahne's burnt and blistering face smiled at Dagger, and then the spark of life left her eyes. Her arm dropped from Dagger's trembling hands, and her chest stopped rising. The princess sobbed brokenly, losing her last remaining parent.

Drake looked to Zidane, and tilted his head towards the princess meaningfully before starting to go and look for enough wood to make a pyre. They couldn't take her with them as she was. They'd all end up ill before they were halfway there.

By the time Drake returned, Dagger was sniffling and nodding to something Zidane was saying. Amarant and Vivi were nowhere to be seen, though they soon returned, both carrying armfuls of firewood. Drake smiled faintly at that, and set his armful down before going and looking for some more. Even with more than one person on the task, it was going to take a lot of fire to properly cremate the queen.

On the archer's second return, he saw that a large urn of some sort had appeared, likely from the ship. The anchor was lodged deep into a sand dune now as well, ensuring that the vessel wouldn't depart without them. Dagger was kneeling some distance away from the growing pyre and her mother, a bundle of fabric in her lap with the urn next to her. Zidane was organizing the wood as best he could.

It took them until nightfall before the pyre was built, and they were all tired. They'd taken turns keeping Dagger company while the rest went and fetched wood. Amarant had apparently spent his turn investigating the ship. Eiko had disappeared onto the boat and refused to leave it, for whatever reason.

As the sun started to descend, though, it was time to light the pyre. First, however, they had to get the queen's corpse to the wood. It took all three adult men several tries before they could even lift her. Even so, they half-dragged her to the bier made of wood, and had to pause to catch their breath before lifting her on top of it.

Drake fell backwards onto the sand once the task was managed, gasping for breath. He wasn't the only one, either. Amarant and Zidane were both breathing heavily, though Amarant was already heading down to the waves to wash himself. The archer didn't blame him, as the smell was already starting to spread.

Zidane and Drake both went to wash themselves off as well, and Vivi offered them canteens that he had filled from a freshwater spring he'd found while looking for firewood. Drake grunted a thank-you to the boy as he sat a ways off from the pyre, upwind from it, and rubbed his sore muscles.

As the sun's last rays faded from the sky, Drake took a stick that they would use as a torch and held it out for Vivi to light. Dagger had requested that he say a prayer for her mother, seeing as the woman had died on his continent, and he had been raised by a priestess. The archer couldn't refuse, though it took him a bit of thinking before he figured out what to say.

"Warrior queen from the land of Mist, rest in peace at long last. May the Horned Lord seat you at his side and allow you to join his hall." Drake pushed the burning tip of the torch into the pyre and left it there, taking a step back. Dagger sniffled into Zidane's shoulder as the dry wood caught fire quickly, and soon turned into a roaring inferno.

Drake spotted Eiko standing at the railing of the boat by the light of the pyre, watching them. No doubt, she was remembering when she'd had to tend to her grandfather's funeral all on her own. The archer couldn't blame her not wanting to be around, with that thought.

A smaller fire had been lit to act as a cookfire, and it was to that fire that the group returned to. They were quiet, each with their own thoughts. Food that night was a roasted creature that Amarant had caught and skinned. It was small, but no one was feeling up to eating much anyway. The supplies on board the ship were saved for when they finally set out, in the morning.

"I'm not gonna be the only one tending the sails on the way back." More than one set of eyes flicked to Amarant for his growl. His eyes were hidden in the shadows cast by his hair. "You two had better be prepared to learn to sail." The archer sighed as the bandit gestured towards him and Zidane. The archer preferred to keep his feet on the ground for a very good reason.

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**End Notes:** And that's it for Book Two!

I thought about ending this chapter where the game ended, but then thought differently of it. The Drake in my head kept scolding me for the idea. ~laughs~ I like how it came out, though. It's nice, and doesn't leave everyone off with an emotionally charged moment.

**_Read, enjoy, and review!_**


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